


Everything Turns to Ghost

by mcrystal7



Category: Sweet Valley High - Francine Pascal
Genre: F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Guardian Angels, Loss, Paranormal, Romance, Sisters, Unexpected Visitors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:06:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 23,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24440293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcrystal7/pseuds/mcrystal7
Summary: When an injured stranger shows up at Jessica and Elizabeth's secluded house for help, Jessica begins to suspect he is more than human and is full of unsettling secrets that will soon destroy everything Jessica has planned to keep safe.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Editing is not so great, forgive me, but would love to know what you think 😊

Jessica Wakefield was driving her car and wondering what she was doing with her life. Thirty-four and still working at a job she felt stuck in, and living with a sister she didn’t vibe with. Her hands tensed on the steering wheel as the highway phased out of stream of cars and billboards into emptiness and old broken streetlamps. She was nearing the wastelands, nearing her house. The thought of going home used to calm her, now it perturbed her.  
Jessica tucked a strand of sun-streaked blonde behind her ear and prepared to take a right turn, when the headlights flashed on what she presumed was the outline of a human. Panicked, she pulled the car to a stop.  
Luckily, on this deserted road, no cars were behind to crash into her. She remained at a stop and rolled down the passenger’s window. “What on God’s earth do you think you’re doing?”  
The man she almost hit ignored her and kept walking on a side of the road – barely on the side of the road, he was basically in front of her. But was it his fault that there were no sidewalks here?  
Still, Jessica was livid. Her heart was throbbing and her fingers shaking, yet the guy acted like an oblivious moron, walking peacefully as if no car behind him had almost scraped its tires for his sake.  
“Hey, you!” roared Jessica. Finally, the man turned around.  
In the shine of the headlights, she made out his messy dark hair, which recent expensive haircut was still obvious. His eyes were of a clear color, which wasn’t visible in the half dark, and they were wide, almost filling up the middle of his diamond-shaped face.  
Something was undeniably familiar about this man in crumpled jeans and a red sweater, but Jessica was in no mood to pinpoint it. Also, she was very much aware of the rule of never stopping for anyone due to any reason in the middle of a desolate street. One moment that man could be asking for directions, and in the next moment he could draw out a knife or two other cars could be hidden somewhere undetectable and ambush her, blocking her escape.  
Jessica rolled up her window, ready to go back on her way, especially after the man had been made aware of a car behind him so he might now stay the hell out of her way. She placed her hands back on the steering wheel when a knock on a window caused her to jump.  
She gasped, turning to the left. How could this man, who was just standing by the passenger’s side, suddenly be on the driver’s side, peering in through the glass? The indirect glare of the headlights mixed with the shadowiness of the wastelands fuzzed out some of his facial features, but she could see him more clearly now. She recognized him, but he didn’t seem to recognize her.  
“Um, sorry to bother you,” were the first words she made out of the rest of his muffled speech behind her window. He kept on for a whole minute before Jessica finally decided to roll down her window a crack, just in time to catch him say, “Wakefield?”  
Jessica smiled, and said a confident, “What?”  
He looked worried, although a few minutes ago she’d mistaken his oblivion and unwillingness to acknowledge her car behind him for total haughtiness and self-assurance. Now he looked like he couldn’t utter a complete sentence without stammering or panting or remembering to blink to save his life.  
“I’m looking for the Wakefields? They own a property here somewhere, I think. Do you know them?”  
Jessica wanted to slide the window all the way down and show him who he was talking to, but even if this was Terry Fae, the boy she’d taken myriad of swimming lessons with when they were kids, Jessica knew it was best to be wary.  
She recognized his adult face because they were connected, although not actively, through social media. But familiar faces weren’t necessarily benign. Who knew what type of man Terry Fae had grown into? Social media wasn’t reliable. Smiling faces weren’t necessarily healthy faces. Despite his friendly newsfeed, she still had no idea how his history had unfolded since the day she and her sister had stopped going to the wellness center when her family had moved from the city.  
And wasn’t him taking a stroll on a dark dreary road with no sidewalks, asking strangers for her and her sister by name a tad suspicious?  
No, Jessica didn’t roll the window all the way down.  
“No, sorry,” said Jessica. Although it was weird he didn’t recognize her. How many girls with a tan, straight blond hair, and aquamarine eyes did he know really?  
She focused her eyes back on the road. As soon as Terry stepped away, she turned right and sped home.  
The sea green gates of her family’s property appeared a few minutes later. And they appeared to be open. Jessica parked the car outside the gate, running once she’d climbed out.  
“Liz?” she called, entering the front garden of their house. She spotted her twin sister standing next to the irises with a shovel, her clothes and face all covered in mud. Jessica took out her phone, turned on its flashlight, and pointed it at Elizabeth, who appeared to be digging up a hole. Her usually smooth ponytail was smeared with more mud and sweat. A ton of dog hair was also visible on Elizabeth’s dirty clothes.  
Jessica opened her mouth, about to make a teasing comment about whether Elizabeth had played with their dog and his frisbee all night again, when she noticed the still body on the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

“Skippy!” Jessica dropped her phone as her hands rose to cover her mouth, her horrified eyes on the unmoving German shepherd.  
“I know, he’s dead,” said Elizabeth in a monotone. The pony-tailed twin stood up to study the hole she’d dug up, making sure it didn’t disturb the planted irises, before she dropped to her knees next to Skippy.  
“Help me carry him in?” she said, glancing back at her sister from over her shoulder, her arms wrapped around the limp dog. Jessica shook her head.  
“Jess,” hissed Elizabeth. “Help me. My arms can’t lift a thing from all the digging.”  
“Liz,” whispered Jessica, frozen in place. “I don’t believe you. Skippy died and you’re all…”  
“I’m all what?” Elizabeth huffed, blowing a thin strand of hair off her face.  
Jessica stepped back, wanting to say that her sister was not showing any grieving signs towards their beloved dog, but she stopped in her backward tracks and just sighed, her shoulders dropping.   
“Nothing,” said Jessica.  
Each sister carried one end of Skippy, dropping his body with its last sliver of warmth into the ground. In silence, they worked to cover the hole, Elizabeth with the big shovel and Jessica with a small one she found nearby. It was the same shovel they’d planted those irises with. She remembered they had planted them on the same week they celebrated Skippy’s fifth birthday.  
“Well,” said Elizabeth as they climbed back to their feet, padding the last layer of dirt with her shoe. “Here goes our security system.”  
“Security system? Liz, he was more to us than that.”   
Elizabeth walked back up to the house, ignoring Jessica’s remark. She opened the front door but before she went inside, she noticed Jessica’s car past the gates, parked outside the property.  
“Pull your car up the driveway and close the gates,” said Elizabeth in that same monotone voice. “We don’t want to take any risks now our guard dog’s no longer here to warn us.”  
“Skippy,” Jessica stressed, ignoring Elizabeth’s instructions and climbed up the stairs to the front door instead. “What’s wrong with you? His name is Skippy, and he meant more to us than a guard dog. He was a friend, but I guess you never thought of him that way. I should’ve known. You always referred to your frisbee playtime with him as good exercise for your legs, as if that was all your quality time with him meant to you.”  
Jessica hadn’t noticed the tears streaming down her face until she caught her reflection in a window Elizabeth’s shoulder. Elizabeth gave Jessica a stern look.  
“Car. Driveway. Lock the gate. Now.”  
“Ugh,” expressed Jessica, whirling round to take care of Elizabeth’s demands.  
Once the car was in the driveway and both the gate and the front door of the house were locked, Jessica stormed into the living area, where there was also an open kitchen. Elizabeth was there, pouring water in a glass.  
“Liz, please, can’t we talk about this?” There was a clear strain in Jessica’s words.  
“Talk later when you’re calm. I can’t handle one of your traumas right now.”  
“Sadness,” Jessica wailed, planting her palms upon the counter next to Elizabeth’s jug of water. “It’s an emotion and it’s called sadness. Another key emotion you might want to learn about. It could, you know, help you be able to have a conversation with me. About feelings. Not about what should be done around the house or whatever. You know, feelings could’ve also helped you talk to someone other than your textbooks in high school. And you could’ve gone out with me tonight and had some fun with friends in the city center instead of being stuck here. Your energy is suffocating the house. If I were Skippy, I’d die, too.”  
Elizabeth drank half her water then poured the remainder in the sink, before making her way out the kitchen area to the staircase. “I have to go shower. Good night, Jessica.”  
“No,” cried Jessica, dashing to stand between Elizbeth and the stairs. “I’m sad, Liz, and it’s not just because of Skippy. I’m sad for other reasons and if you still don’t want to talk about how this house our mother and father had left us is going to have its beautiful surroundings destroyed and the grief that puts me in every day, the heartbreak I feel every time I’m driving back to the home that will never be the same again, then let’s, at least, talk about Skippy. Our best friend. You can talk about that, right?”  
Elizabeth sighed. “Look, I’m sad about Skippy, and believe it or not, I’m sad about the house, too. But unlike you, Jessica, I don’t dwell on things. They’re going to build shopping malls around our house instead of the forest, so what? I don’t care. I focus on what I have now, what I can be grateful for now. Other people have it worse, this could be worse. Now, Jessica, like I said I need to go take a shower.”  
She passed Jessica to climb up the stairs, when a soft knock fell on their front door.   
Elizabeth stopped in her ascent. “What is that?”   
Still shaking from her emotional turmoil, Jessica shrugged her shoulders.  
Elizabeth’s eyebrows drew together in an analytical mode. She hurried down the stairs and Jessica followed her to the front door.  
Elizabeth lay her hand on the door, making sure it was secured correctly and that it wasn’t just the sound of the wind. Jessica leaned the side of her head against the barrier to see if she could hear anything outside.   
Another knock sounded, clear this time. The two sisters stepped back and drew their faces to each other. Elizabeth’s sea green eyes seemed to wonder whether she should ask who, but Jessica just bit her lip and shrugged. They could look through the peephole but it was dark outside and they didn’t want whoever was there to know someone was stirring inside by turning on the garden light. Who would come all the way up here in the dead of night? It wasn’t like they had any neighbors in this deserted place.  
Soon, they needn’t decide any longer, for the person standing outside spoke. “Wakefield? Is this the Wakefield house?”  
“I know that voice.” Jessica frowned, and Elizabeth shushed her.  
“No, I really do,” whispered Jessica. Elizabeth was about to mouth something but was interrupted.  
“Hello?” the man spoke again. He sounded weak, like trying to hold himself up against physical pain.  
Jessica knitted her brows together. Finally, she lowered herself on four limbs and crawled towards the nearest window. Elizabeth watched her as she, while laying as low as possible, peeked through the window.   
“Oh my God. It’s Terry Fae.”  
Elizabeth’s face filled with confusion while Jessica peered out the window some more. It was no way of telling if it was Terry for sure. The dark swallowed up most of his features up, but she recognized the outline of the same crumpled sweater and jeans and the same messy hair – or hair that recently got messed up for she could recognize an expensive haircut anywhere and under any condition.  
Was it the same haircut he had in that barbeque he’d posted about on social media a few years ago? Jessica remembered having looked at those pictures once or twice. She remembered it was an attractive haircut.   
Unable to resist, she got up and lay her hand on the door knob. Elizabeth frantically shook her head at her.  
“What?” whispered Jessica, keeping her hand still on the knob. “I’m not doing anything.”  
Elizabeth then pushed her way between Jessica and the door, facing it as she took control.  
“Who’s out there?” she shouted in the gruffest voice possible. Jessica rolled her eyes.  
“Uh… Terry Fae,” the man struggled out. Jessica gestured a soundless celebration for being right.  
“I’m actually hurt,” said Terry. “And I need help. Are you Wakefield?”  
Jessica stopped her celebrating and frowned, for she didn’t remember seeing him injured or hurt when she’d bumped into him earlier. Elizabeth turned to her for suggestions.  
“We should let him in,” mumbled Jessica.  
“Are you crazy?” Elizabeth mouthed back, but then she started arguing in frantic whispers. “He snuck in here. When you left that gate open, remember? He snuck in while we were burying Skippy. He’s been here for a while without us letting us know and you think you could trust him?”  
“I’m sorry if I’m intruding,” said Terry, as if he was in on their conversation. “I saw the gate open and I came in, looking for help. But I think passed out for a few minutes, then I woke up on your lawn. I’m hurt, like I said. Please, if you’re in there, at least, lend me a phone or something.”  
Elizabeth looked doubtful, which caused Jessica to take out her phone. She showed Elizabeth Terry’s profile page. “We know him. See? Seventeen mutual friends. Liz, come on, what if he really needs our help?”  
Elizabeth thought for a moment, a crease between her eyebrows, then turned to the door and said, “How did you know about this place?”  
“About your house?” His friendly chortle cracked hard, as if laughing exerted a lot of physical effort from him. “I live in the suburbs. I was driving home when my car broke down and my phone is dead.” I had no idea what to do, then I remembered when, a couple of decades back, my mother used to talk all day about you guys moving to some place far outside the city.”  
“He talks an awful lot for an injured man,” murmured Elizabeth and Jessica agreed.   
“Anyway, I realized that your house is actually somewhere near my new suburban home. My mother back then had made it sound like your home was so secluded from everything else, but granted that was before the suburbs had come about.” He paused. Jessica imagined he’d taken a look around the garden and outside their spear top fence, for his next words were, “A pretty secluded area yours is still. Very quiet.”  
“Not for long,” grumbled Jessica and Elizabeth gave her a look as if to say Not with this again.  
This made Jessica pretty angry, and tightening her fingers around the door knob, she looked to her sister and said, “You’re not the only boss of this house,” before she swung the door open.


	3. Chapter 3

“Terry,” she said with a big grin on her face. Out of her peripheral vision she could see the look on her sister’s face. She wished the corner of her eye had a camera so she could capture the priceless look. She stifled a laugh.  
Honestly, she couldn’t tell what the fuss was all about. After opening the door for Terry, all the doubt and worry fell away. All she could see now was her old little friend who beat her in every swimming race he’d challenged her at. Jessica, though, couldn’t have cared less about the races or the swimming lessons. All she remembered was her bobbing on the kickboard while waiting for the coach to give instructions, her mind’s only focus was the turquoise water that glowed and drew patterns in the sunlight. Elizabeth, however, thrived in every lesson, and Terry was always hesitant to ask her to race.   
“Elizabeth,” Terry said, staring straight into Jessica’s eyes. Jessica was about to correct him when he lurched forward and an unpleasant splattering sound hit the air. The scent of vomit became evident in the air and Jessica was scared to look down at her shoes.  
The real Elizabeth stepped in and grabbed Terry’s head before it hit the steps. He’d lost consciousness again.  
“Some support, please,” said Elizabeth. “Or get out of the way.”  
“Now you want to bring him in?” said Jessica, disturbed. “After he vomited?”  
“This is serious, Jessica. He could be having a concussion.”  
“I’m,” let out a waking Terry. “Okay.”  
“No, he’s not okay,” said Jessica, blocking her nose and pointing at Terry’s knee where the light of the house now fell. A wide cut gushed with glistening red from under a gruesome tear in his jeans. “If I had that I’d throw up, too.”  
“Jessica,” Elizabeth snapped. “Get me a towel. Quick.”   
Jessica stepped out of her shoes, leaving them with the rest of the throw up as she hurried inside to the kitchen. Elizabeth dragged the uninvited guest into the living area and laid him on a sofa. While fetching a dish towel, Jessica noticed how Terry’s long legs took up the whole width of the sofa, which was made to support more than four people.  
“Terry,” said Elizabeth in a formal tone. “Stay awake.”  
“I’m not having a concussion,” he answered, weakly. “I just hate the sight of blood like Jessica said.”  
Jessica, who walked with the towel towards them, tilted her head with a proud smile and pointed her thumb at herself. “Right again.”  
Elizabeth elevated Terry’s injured leg, observing the cut. “What the hell happened here?”  
“After meeting Jessica in her car,” he said with a teasing look at Jessica, who blushed at how him recognizing it had been her. “Another car fled by me so fast and I fell on some exposed pipe.”  
Jessica grimaced, handing her sister the towel. Elizabeth applied pressure to Terry’s wound, her face remaining calm.  
“We have to take him to the hospital.”  
Terry managed a smile. “Let’s be a bit careless and skip that step. I’ve been through enough tonight.”  
“But there’s a risk for infection.”  
Terry shook his head. “I had a tetanus shot a few months ago.”  
“We need more towels,” Jessica pointed at the white cloth in Elizabeth’s hand turned red.   
“Right,” said Elizabeth. “I know where the certain rough ones are, I’ll go get them.”   
She motioned for Jessica to take her place. Jessica sat on her knee beside Terry, pressing the half-red towel on his knee, while Elizabeth headed upstairs. With one sister out of the room, the house was suddenly silent. Jessica continued applying pressure with the bloody towel, reveling in the tranquility that was present for the first time since she’d arrived home. Only the sounds of the leaves outside flickering in the breeze were present. As Jessica listened to each rustle, a piece of her heart broke.  
“It’s amazing how after leaving the city you can really sense the quiet here.”  
Jessica turned her face to Terry’s, but she could only respond with a faint smile.  
Terry’s eyes were clear like she noticed before, and now in the soft living-room light she saw they were light brown. Their softness complimented his sharp cheekbones. Some tufts of his black hair fell on his brow. Jessica wanted to reach out and touch the side of his face but resisted the urge.  
She also resisted asking herself why she wanted to do that, touch him. Now wasn’t the time for such impulses.  
“Towels!” cried Elizabeth from the top of the stairs in a tone that, in Jessica’s opinion, suggested she was a bit too proud of herself. With a sigh, Jessica looked away from Terry to stare at the ground instead, waiting for Elizabeth to step in again with this new thicker towel.  
The bleeding stopped after a few more minutes. Elizabeth cleaned and examined the wound. Jessica watched. “Should I get some bandages?”  
With a scowl, Elizabeth replied, “Haven’t you paid any attention to our safety training at work? Don’t dress a cut or infections might get trapped inside.”  
Jessica put both her hands up. “Sorry if I’m more keen on texting friends than listening to some boring session about CPR.”  
Elizabeth smirked. “You see it as boring, I see it as the chance to save a life one day.”  
Jessica bent down with laughter. “Classic Liz. Overstatementing yourself.”  
“That’s not a word.” Elizabeth gathered the stained towels in her hands and stood up. “I got the towels,” she told Jessica. “You take care of that vomit outside before it dries and sticks to the threshold.”  
Jessica cursed.  
“I’m here, by the way,” said Terry.  
Outside Jessica filled a bucket with water from a hose, then went to fetch a cloth from the garden shed. The shed was dusty with so many tools lying against its walls. She even glimpsed a mechanical chainsaw, which, not only she and Elizabeth had no purpose for, they didn’t know how to use it. They should get rid of it, at least, if it was too hard to let go of the other sellable stuff in the house. Plus, it creeped Jessica out.  
After finding a suitable cloth, she went back outside and got to cleaning. The smell of vomit was everywhere, but the clean air of the forest was still evident to her. Once most of the throw up was cleaned up, the reviving green smell overfilled her. She closed her eyes and listened to the moving trees, breathing them in as much as she could, feeling like she was already saying goodbye to them. She wished this had all been a dream, that the announcements she’d seen about the neighboring malls opening up were fake. Were from some other eerie dimension, which she and her sister and their house weren’t a part of.  
Of course, if switching dimensions were possible, though, there were a few more things she would’ve liked to change. Or bring back.  
The front door opened wider, letting light from the inside cover her. Jessica squinted before she looked up, expecting her sister, but was surprised to see Terry. He used the doorframe to support himself.  
She glanced at his knee. The cut didn’t look as wide now. The jeans were ripped badly, though, but they were what made the damage from the pipe less worse.  
“You need to keep that elevated.”  
Terry laughed. “So you did pay attention to safety training after all.”  
Jessica narrowed her eyes. “Guys who listen in on conversations between two sisters get cursed.”  
He smiled, the corner of his lips curved up. Jessica felt herself going a little weak, so she averted her gaze to his knee.   
She pointed at the ripped left leg of his jeans. “Let me fold this up for you so it won’t irritate your cut.”  
He let her roll up the leg of his jeans for him. Every time her fingertips or knuckles brushed against some hair or skin, tingles rushed through her body. At one point, Jessica looked up. He was staring straight at her, his eyes intense. Could she have also sensed his breathing tighten as hers did?  
Once the fold got secured over his cut knee, she let go. “Done.”  
Terry smiled, bending his knee as if checking the fold would stay in place. “Wow,” he said with mock fascination. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re a doctor.”  
“Well, you don’t know any better, so what makes you think I’m not a doctor?”  
His lip curved up again as he tilted his face at her. “Come on, I remember one certain swimming lesson that was after the day you and your sister had received your school report cards. Your parents were praising Elizabeth all day, but you remained in one far corner of the pool, bobbing on your kickboard, nervously laughing while telling me how much trouble you’d be in.”  
“Maybe I had one bad year.”  
“Well, that happened for several consecutive years, not just one.”  
Jessica had nothing to say to that. Grinning, he leaned down towards her, but as their eyes stared directly at each other in the soft light of the house, his grin disappeared.  
“Um,” said Terry glancing down at the bucket. “How rude of me. I should be the one cleaning that. Let me.”  
He kneeled down to take the cloth from her, when an agonizing cry burst out of him.  
The cut had stretched further open by his movement. Jessica saw the blood trickling out.  
“I’m never going to get used to cuts,” Terry’s remark came out as a breathy struggle.   
There wasn’t a lot of blood, but it must’ve triggered the previous episode in Terry, for the man suddenly couldn’t keep his balance. His head hit against the doorframe and his eyes closed.  
“Elizabeth?”   
The pony-tailed blond came running out from the laundry room, a bottle of detergent still in her hand. She took one glance at Terry’s unconscious body and sighed.   
“You know where he lives?”  
Jessica shook her head. But even if she did know his address, did Elizabeth expect her to drive so far past the middle of the night when they had work the next day? She was already beat from the party she’d been at, and from meeting Terry. Not to mention Skippy. Poor Skippy. He needed a proper grieving. She was hoping to light some candles and write a poem that night, but that was before Terry had shown up.  
“Of course, you don’t know where he lives,” said Elizabeth. “We’ve just met this adult version of him tonight.”  
“I can message one of our mutual friends. Maybe they can come pick him up.”  
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “As if people are so reliable.”   
A few moments of silence, except for the forest sounds, fell between them as Elizabeth concentrated hard, her gaze fixed to her front where the gates were.  
“Liz?” Jessica murmured. “I think we’ll have to let him stay the night.”  
“What? No way. There’s no way I’m letting a stranger sleep in the same house as we in an area where the nearest place with people who aren’t night prowlers is forty minutes away.”   
“Let me say this in a way your analytical mind would understand,” said Jessica. “There’s a fifty percent chance Terry’s a criminal, and a fifty percent chance he’s a good guy, right?”  
With a crease between her eyebrows, Elizabeth nodded.  
“And tonight we have lost our guard dog.”  
“I thought he was more than a guard dog.”  
“Listen to me! God, Elizabeth, why do you have to patronize me all the time?”  
“No time for your drama now, Jessica. Spill it.”   
Jessica had a bad word in mind, which she thought fitted Elizabeth at that moment well, but she resisted the urge to say it and instead carried on with explaining her point. “So, what if, we take a chance on Terry and let him stay the night, and if the odds are in our favor, he’d turn out to be a good guy and serve us well as our security for the night, our first night without Skippy.”  
This, for some reason, seemed to touch Elizabeth’s heart. Jessica noticed a glimmer on the edge of her sister’s eyelid.   
Elizabeth glanced around the garden in thought, before she sniffed and wiped the tear away.  
“Fine,” she said. “But he stays outside. Prepare some mattress in the garden shed for him.”  
Jessica’s jaw dropped open. “A mattress… garden shed? Where the creepy chainsaw is?”  
“I need to go take a shower,” mumbled Elizabeth and disappeared back inside.   
A few seconds later, Jessica turned her shocked face to the unconscious, but peacefully breathing Terry. “I’m sorry for my sister’s perfect hospitality.”


	4. Chapter 4

Jessica didn’t believe her sister was actually serious about letting Terry sleep in the filthy garden shed. But she waited for her sister to be done with her shower and get in bed before Jessica crept upstairs and fetched fresh sheets from the linen closet to prepare Terry’s guestroom downstairs. While doing so, she heard the lock of Elizabeth’s bedroom turn. Elizabeth never locked her room, which meant she expected Jessica to not listen to her and to have Terry rest inside the house.  
As Jessica was thinking that, her phone notified her of an incoming text message.  
“Lock your bedroom door before you go to sleep,” the text said.  
Jessica grinned. “Classic Liz.”  
Later, when she placed her head on her pillow, Jessica had forgotten all about Terry. As if the events of that night had just been some weird daydream she was having in order to cope with Skippy’s death.   
She pulled the sheets tighter around her body and the last thing she saw before she fell asleep was the image of a German Shepard running towards her across a sun-streamed meadow.  
Jessica woke up with a strange feeling. With the sun shining in her eyes, since she liked to leave a part of her drapes drawn open to be woken by the natural light, she stretched her arms up against the headboard, wondering what felt different about this morning.   
Soon it hit her. Terry Fae. He was downstairs. The image of his curved-up smile and of his haircut in the pictures on social media Jessica had looked at once, or twice. Now he was downstairs, and he was more than just a passing thought to her, more than random pictures online. Jessica couldn’t wait to see him again, to have conversations with him…. to see where those conversations might lead.  
Without wasting another second, she jumped out of bed and went to get ready in the bathroom, which she managed to turn from squeaky clean to a wild mess in ten minutes.  
But now she looked the exact opposite of a mess. She didn’t go too far, though. Somehow, Terry felt different. Like she wouldn’t want to impress him with a shiny dress or sexy shoes. She’d impress him with the kind of clothes she wore every day to work, but with a few added touches here and there. As little make-up as her usual workdays, but now so carefully applied. Same style of work clothes, plain skirt and blouse, but with a special kind of scented lotion worn underneath. She’d curled a few strands of her straight hair, giving it the perfect amount of volume.  
As her hand grabbed the stair railing, she got flanked by a sense of perturbation. What if Terry wasn’t downstairs? What if he’d left?  
She glanced towards Elizabeth’s room. The door was open and when she walked there to look inside, she found it was the way Elizabeth left it every morning after she woke up. The white bedcovers pulled all the way to the foot of the bed to let the mattress breathe, the windows wide open for the fresh morning air and sun to flow in.   
She then heard voices downstairs, but the more steps she climbed down, nearing those voices, the more a kind of bad feeling came over her. Was Jessica wrong? Had she misread that strange feeling she’d woken up with as something good?   
Something didn’t seem right, for those weren’t just voices, they were chortles. An animated conversation. Was Elizabeth actually enjoying a laugh?   
As soundlessly as possible, Jessica went down the last few steps. Once she reached the ground floor, with the whole living area now spread in front of her, she tried not to make any movement while watching the two people sitting on the sofa. They were both facing each other as much as they could while keeping their feet on the ground. Terry was fiercely nodding his head, the sunlight bouncing off his eyes and prominent cheekbones. He seemed so engrossed in what Elizabeth was saying.  
“And whenever I’d throw the frisbee far past our garden, poor Skippy wouldn’t stop barking at the fence till I’d let him out into the forest. He could’ve barked at it for hours if I let him and once he actually did. That day, I didn’t open the back gate for hours just to see how long he’d keep at it. He didn’t stop till sunset. Jess was mad at me that day, calling me a sadistic bitch.” Elizabeth’s voice cracked as she laughed out loud, as though she was crying and laughing at the same time. “I miss him so much already.”  
Jessica’s jaw dropped. Before Skippy they had Sunshine, a golden retriever, and before Sunshine a hound called Salvador. All broke their hearts when they died, but Jessica had never seen Elizabeth open up about any of those dogs the way she seemed to be doing now. And with no other than a stranger.  
It also weirded Jessica out how her sister seemed to be having a chat that lasted longer than ten seconds and that wasn’t about scientific studies, or work, or how-to topics. Not that Elizabeth was incapable of having a chat, she just wasn’t interested in normal human stuff. The only conversation Jessica believed Elizabeth had actually enjoyed was one about how to get rid of it mold growing in apartments. A weird component, Jessica thought, for a thrilling subject.  
She watched as Terry, after a little hesitation, lay his hand on Elizabeth’s knee. Jessica gave an evil smile, knowing how her sister would react. But to Jessica’s uttermost surprise, instead of instinctively removing his hand, Elizabeth gave Terry the most glowing smile Jessica had ever seen. Her heart sank. What was going on?  
While lost in shock, Jessica must’ve unconsciously made a movement for the two of them looked up at the same time.  
“Jessica,” said Elizabeth. “A wonderful morning, isn’t it?”  
“Huh?”  
“How about some fresh juice from our oranges in the garden.” She jumped up from the sofa before she looked down at Terry, who was trying not to touch his knee, as if it still hurt but he didn’t want to infect it or make it worse by laying a hand on it. The fold Jessica had made was still there, holding above his knee, exposing his cut, which Elizabeth glanced at with a tilted head and a smile.   
“Need a hand to get up?”  
Terry’s face blushed, and it was obvious he tried to act casual but failed. “Uh, eh, yes, um… Sure.”  
No, thought Jessica. This was so wrong.  
He took Elizabeth’s hand and she pulled him up. “You are a baby, you know that. A small cut wouldn’t have a grown man babying up to me like that.”  
The amount of flirtation and effortless jokes streaming out of Elizabeth was uncomfortable. What made it more uncomfortable for Jessica was how comfortable Elizabeth seemed to be while acting that way. Like it was a part of her nature after all. Which Jessica knew wasn’t so.  
But none of that mattered, for Jessica believed that as soon as Elizabeth would be busy picking oranges from the garden, Terry would turn his attention back on Jessica, and everything would be like it was the night before. Magical and fun, and whatever weird spell Elizabeth seemed to be under would be gone.  
But that wasn’t what happened at all.   
Terry walked towards Jessica. “Good morning, Jessica.”   
“Good morning, Terry.” She was about to suggest they make coffee together, but Terry passed her to follow Elizabeth out the kitchen into the back garden. He didn’t even give Jessica a flicker of a glance when she tossed her hair over her shoulder and gave him a bright smile.  
Something hard dropped in the center of Jessica’s chest. It wasn’t disappointment, nor was it the sense of being left out. She was Jessica Wakefield, the only left out she knew was the leftout takeout food she’d save in the fridge for the next morning. Or was that called leftover?   
When they were kids, she sometimes teased Elizabeth and called her a leftover gene. It made her sister mad. Jessica smiled at the memory. The reflection of her face in the window, as she watched Elizabeth and Terry picking oranges together, looked sad, though. She stopped smiling and then saw her usual reflection plastered there, the one she’d recently been seeing now whenever she looked out any window of her house. Then she discovered what the ill-feeling in her chest was.  
Terry’s arrival had served her as a distraction. Now she had nothing but to go back to her own thoughts, the thoughts that were currently nothing but a little silent web of nightmares that twisted around her brain even while she was awake.  
Jessica sighed and turned away from the picture of abundant cheer and humor that surrounded a pony-tailed blond tossing oranges at an injured – barely injured, in Jessica’s opinion – but happy man.  
Making the coffee on her own was a better idea. Coffee was always been made by one person, anyway. It was so stupid to suggest she and Terry make it together. Good thing he ignored her. Or didn’t care enough to ignore her. He simply didn’t notice her.   
His smile from the night before flashed through her mind, but she pushed that image away.  
Less than an hour later, the three of them were in Jessica’s car. They had to be at work at seven thirty. Terry had suggested they’d take him along with them as he didn’t want to make them late, and from the parking lot of where the twins worked, he’d order a cab and go home.  
“So where do you work?”  
“No, you’d have to guess,” said Elizabeth, turning around in her seat to face Terry. Jessica’s eyes grew wide. Usually Elizabeth would list her full job description within the first twenty seconds of being asked that question. Guessing games were way below Elizabeth’s level.  
What was Terry doing to her twin? Or was Jessica having a hard time accepting Elizabeth to be getting along with him so well?  
Still, it would’ve felt a whole lot better if her sister was getting along with Terry while being her usual monotone, systematic, boring self. Or would it?  
Jessica decided to ignore reality right now and focus on her driving. This went on smoothly, with her blocking out Elizabeth and Terry’s conversation and letting the consistent popping of trees along the road distract her. Until something else other than trees and street lamps appeared. Something dark and furry.  
Skippy.  
Her car swerved and she brought it to a stop at the side of the road.  
“Jessica,” cried Elizabeth in shock. In the rearview mirror, Terry looked disoriented.  
“I’m sorry,” said Jessica, drumming her nervous fingers against the steering wheel. “I thought I saw…”  
Elizabeth and Terry remained silent, both out of the residual shock and out of waiting for Jessica to finish her sentence.  
“What?” Elizabeth said impatiently.  
“Nothing, nothing.”   
Jessica pulled the car back on the road, cursing under her breath, frowning in the rearview mirror. She pretended her frown was just concentration on her driving but it was actually due to how she’d embarrassed herself in front of Terry. She hoped he didn’t realize that when their eyes passed each other in the rearview mirror.


	5. Chapter 5

Jessica put on her shades as she, Elizabeth and Terry stepped out of the car. The parking lot wasn’t that sunny at 7:30 am, but Jessica’s shades gave her an armor boost as she made her journey from her car to the entrance of the school she worked in. The shades didn’t shield her, though, from the irritating conversation that went on between Elizabeth and Terry.  
“I’ll use my phone to call you a cab, and next time don’t leave your house without a fully charged phone,” Elizabeth told Terry, and Jessica rolled her eyes. Sis Liz had to always be making sure everyone was being responsible.  
She watched them out of the corner of her eye and listened to their laughing sounds for a couple of more minutes, before deciding to get on her way to school.  
The fresh air hit her face and she breathed it in, grateful for this cleanliness of an inhale, but her heart cracked as she exhaled. Would she still enjoy pure air once the malls open outside her garden fence at home?  
That was when Jessica realized, this was her last chance. She had to act now if she wanted not to feel crappy all the time, to have a change in her routine, someone who made her laugh – and if Terry could make Elizabeth laugh like that, then what would his effect be on Jessica?  
As Elizabeth was in the middle of a sentence, Jessica turned back around and stepped between her sister and Terry, extending a hand to him. “Your unexpected visit has been a pleasure.”  
Terry, who looked surprise for a second, shook Jessica’s hand. “It was crazy bumping into you again.”  
Jessica’s lips stretched in a triumphant smile and opened her mouth to say something more, when Terry let go of her hand and stepped away from both sisters. “I think I see my cab. Thank you so much again. Girls, I owe you one.”  
He turned towards the street in his jeans with one leg folded up. Jessica watched him in utter disappointment, until he looked back again and her heart skipped a beat.   
“I’ll see you in the city later?”  
Overjoyed that her disappointment was for nothing, Jessica parted her lips to answer, but it was Elizabeth’s words that came out faster than hers, and it was actually Elizabeth Terry was talking to. A dark cloud fell on Jessica.  
“Sure.” Elizabeth winked. Like actually winked at a guy she barely knew.  
Sliding the shades further up her nose, Jessica whirled round and headed to work. Students filled the space outside the entrance of the school. Since classes didn’t start before 8:00, the teenagers didn’t want to go inside and be pestered by the authorities. Jessica saw their point.  
She had to go in early, though. She had a class schedule to prepare for.  
She passed the entrance of the building and once she reached the playground, she heard Elizabeth speak behind her.  
“Don’t forget to take off those shades. You look ridiculous in them.”  
Jessica rolled her eyes, but took the sunglasses off, burying them in her purse. They weren’t allowed in school and Jessica didn’t want to get in trouble with Principal Radeeni again. It was a drag having to walk all the way to his office and miss out on most of her break.  
“Good morning, Miss Elizabeth,” said one of the students. He was chubby with light brown curls, and was carrying a backpack with both shoulder straps on. “You have no idea what I discovered about fast-spreading viruses.”  
Jessica was about to have a panic attack, until Elizabeth replied to him. “Can’t wait to read your report.”  
“Right,” Sami, the student, said. “Who knew virology would be such a fascinating biology topic.”   
Elizabeth, the biology teacher, smiled, then she motioned at the book he was holding. “Already started a new book?”  
Sami held up the novel he was reading, a title that hinted science fiction. His thumb was marking the middle of the book. “And almost done with it.”  
“Good for you, Sami. We’ll soon have you to give a seminar on speed reading.”  
With a laugh, Sami waved and left.  
“Speed reading?” said Jessica. “Where’s the fun in that?”  
“It helps you have a more extensive reading list each year.”  
Jessica huffed. “I’ll see you later.”  
As soon as she left Elizabeth’s side, a fight broke in the playground. Elizabeth was right on it. Her attempts to break out the fight came to no avail, yet her voice kept blaring. “Didn’t I tell you students not to handle your drama like that? Repeat after me, therapists trump fists!”  
Jessica hastened in her steps, wanting to be out of earshot from Elizabeth as quick as possible. She reached a spot where there were no other adults around then secretly slipped out her shades and put them on. A small group of students were standing outside the entrance of the building she was heading to. They were gathered around a big frame with a picture of a student who had passed away recently. They were too busy praying and filling the area around his picture with flowers and toys to notice Jessica, who kept her sunglasses on as she slipped inside the building behind them.   
The staircase was so quiet with no students around yet, and her steps echoed through the whole four floors. Finally, she reached the fourth floor and walked across one hallway till she got to the remaining set of stairs that led to the terrace.   
Up on the terrace was a small closed area shaped like a hexagon. She entered this area, which was her classroom where she taught art. There were windows on each side of the hexagon, which let in a good amount of sunlight, and a wide wooden table where she did most of her art demonstrations sat in the middle. Two more tables with high stools faced a windowed wall, opposite which her desk was, and there was a closed small storeroom in the corner of the classroom. Jessica sighed whenever she thought of that storeroom, which she had been planning to tidy up two schoolyears ago. But it remained well locked and shut, so it was easy for her to ignore it.  
She made her way to her desk, which remained tidy thanks to the storeroom where she threw in whatever she had no use for at the moment, and plopped her purse on the floor next to her chair. She pulled open one of her drawers, but before she could take the shades off and place them there, two female students entered her classroom.  
If those girls were going up the stairs after her, she would’ve heard them, so she immediately suspected they had already been on the terrace waiting for her like two stalkers. Jessica rolled her eyes, thankful she hadn’t taken her shades off yet.   
“Miss Jessica, so glad you came,” said one of them with an overly wide smile. Nada was a tall, skinny girl with dyed red hair to the shoulders.   
The other one, Amira, a smallish girl with green-rimmed glasses and bushy light hair, said, “We’ve been wanting your advice on something.”  
Right. Not with this again.  
Jessica pulled off her shades and said, “Look, just because you follow me on social media and see pictures of me partying with cool-like friends, doesn’t mean I hold the holy piece of advice that will transform your life and have it look like mine. In other words, remind me to make my account private. I am no longer interested in talking about boys and shopping. I’m bored of that. Talking about it on your level of age appropriate, I mean. I’m not bored to talk about that in my own grown-up way with my grown- up friends.” She plopped down in her chair before adding, “And by the way, you should, uh…” She tried to think of something Elizabeth would say. “Be staying home studying and holding seminars or something like that. Now, please, let me review my schedule for the day in peace.”  
Nada and Amira glanced at each other, before Amira advanced forward and said, “But this time we want to know how you’ve made your room look so nice.”  
Jessica sharpened her eyes at them. “You saw that picture, too?”   
The girls’ lips pressed in a bashful smile and Jessica sighed.  
“We like the matching artwork,” Amira prompted. “And the twinkling lights you put up your colorful window. How did you manage to make that setting look so much like a fairy tale?”  
“I want to learn how to make my room look as nice as yours,” said Nada, and she took out her phone, on which Jessica’s page was already displayed on screen. Nada scrolled through some pictures Jessica had taken of her room some years ago. Nada tapped her thumb on screen, liking some of them on the spot.  
Jessica stared at the scrolled pictures with pursed lips. “Well, I haven’t added any new decorations to my room in a long time and am not planning to take up that hobby again any time soon.”  
“Well, you should,” said Amira with bright eyes.  
“Why? What’s the point?” said Jessica, eyeing them seriously. “This world sucks, we better accept it than keep decorating it with another set of fairy lights. All people care for is money, not life. No rich environments where you could breathe in tree-filled air or see the stars at night. They don’t care about that. They’d remove beautiful nature for shopping malls. No second thoughts. They’d plaster another vapid billboard against the night sky if it means another flow of cash, they use up every space they could find for that.” With a sigh, she dropped her palm against her desk. “Now go enjoy the rest of your free time before class starts.”  
The two girls looked stumped as they were disappointed. Nada’s disappointment held an added layer of bitterness. This seemed to affect her more than Amira.  
“Fine,” said Nada, placing her phone in the back pocket of her pants. “Let’s go, Amira.”  
With that, Jessica took out the sheet where her schedule was written and skimmed through it, realizing she was out of most of the paint and colored paper she needed for her first class this morning, and the rest of the week. She had forgotten to ask the school to buy or fetch some from their main storage. She couldn’t go ask for the material now, she’d appear neglectful.   
Troubled, she glanced around her classroom, before her eyes fell on the storeroom and remembered she must’ve had some supplies and paper in there. In fact, she was sure she did, so much abandoned material was in that storeroom, it was illegal. All she needed was go through the heaps of old artwork and papier-mâché projects that sat gathering dust in there to get to the needed art supplies.   
Maybe she didn’t have the energy to do so, but someone else might.  
“Wait,” she called out to the two girls who were about to leave the classroom. Jessica felt guilt for what she was about to say next, but it was probably for the best. She glanced at the locked gray-doored storeroom, the only part of the classroom that wasn’t decorated with art pieces of former students, and then back at the girls. “Why don’t we have a deal? Forget me giving you advice, but I’ll keep my social media account public, if you do me a favor and help me fetch some art supplies from in there.”  
Nada and Amira stood still and thoughtful for a moment, then as soon as they comprehended Jessica’s words, their faces glowed and they raced to the storeroom.  
“Hey,” said Jessica from her desk, holding the storeroom key up.  
The girls stopped in their tracks before they ran to Jessica’s desk to get it.  
“Here’s the schedule.” She handed the piece of paper along with the key. “The materials I need are highlighted in green. Enjoy.”  
The two girls giggled as they hurried on to unlock the storeroom door. Jessica observed them lightly. It was as if she had granted them access to a celebrity’s walking closet and they were expecting to see brand new stilettoes and a mountainous collection of nail polish in there. Weren’t they in for a surprise, thought Jessica evilly.   
Carton pieces and disheveled collages spilled out of the storeroom as soon as Nada opened the door. She jumped back with a yelp. Amira coughed out dust.  
“Wow,” said Nada, staring inside the storeroom. “It’s like we’re about to embark on a jungle expedition. And not the fun kind.” She gave Jessica a hard glance before she and Amira started making their way inside the room, the way one would move through knee-deep snow.   
Soon, despite the mess in the storeroom, the girls became excited again and started to read and fervently discuss Jessica’s schedule to see the material they had to fish out. They just couldn’t resist, Jessica thought, rolling her eyes.  
The girls were buried deep behind the heaps that Jessica couldn’t hear them anymore. It was still 7:44 am. Ten minutes before her first class would start. Downstairs in the playground, the students were gathering in lines for the anthem. Jessica was not a class teacher so she didn’t have to be present. Good. In fact, she hated being a teacher overall. She wanted out of this job, it used to cheer her up, the way she encouraged students to explore with their creativity and express their frustrations and boredom through art.   
But now she felt like one of those hopeless students who looked drained all the time, and no amount of creating beautiful artwork would bring them out of their troubles. She couldn’t even bring herself to go through a storeroom or get the art supplies she needed for the week in time. And half of the activities she had written down in her schedule were lame. Coming up with them felt like the mood of drinking stale hot coffee under a hot burning sun.   
Jessica spread her arms across the desk, resting her head there. She decided to take a nap. Not that she needed the extra sleep, but that was better than anything else she could think of doing right now. She closed her eyes, knowing when it was time for class, the footsteps of arriving students echoing through the building would wake her.  
She didn’t know how long she’d gone into that nap before a voice woke her. Jessica straightened herself up and wiped some drool off the corner of her lip before she looked up, expecting to see an early arriving student, or worse, Principal Radeeni.  
But it was only Terry Fae.


	6. Chapter 6

Great, thought Jessica. The nap has hit deep and now I’m dreaming.  
The imaginary Terry Fae was standing a couple of feet behind the desk, one leg of his jeans folded up to his knee. He smiled. In return, Jessica pursed her lips, exhaling through her nostrils.  
“What are you doing here?” She thought if her mind had put itself in so much trouble as to dream up a lifelike Terry Fae ten minutes before class, then she might as well humor it.  
“You’re not happy to see me?” Terry’s eyes widened with an affected sad look.  
“I would be, if you were happy to see me, too.”  
“What does this mean?”  
“You know what it means,” she said. “You couldn’t tear your eyes off of Elizabeth for a second. Not even to give me a proper morning greeting.” If it was just her imagination, it wouldn’t hurt to be honest. “And that made me mad.”  
Taking a few steps closer, Terry reached his russet fingers to her desk and slid them along its edge, where his eyes remained with an intense thought before he snapped his face up at her. “How about I make it up to you?”  
Jessica shrugged. “Too late. I’m not interested in being someone’s second choice. You can go now. I’ve got an art class to teach.”  
Terry looked at the clock behind him. “It still starts in five minutes.”  
Frowning, Jessica was about to argue how he knew that, but then remembered he was her in her mind so, of course, he’d know.  
His light brown stare studied her. “Do you want to see what could happen in five minutes?” Jessica’s throat went dry. His tone implied something was indeed about to happen. Something that made her lick her lips and rub them softly together. She wanted it, but she knew she had to reject Terry. She had to train her mind not to indulge in scenarios with him. He didn’t deserve it. “The students should be on their way up now.” With a mock confused look, Terry leaned the side of his head in the direction of the door. “I don’t hear any students coming. I guess, you’ve let them get used to being late for your class. Hmm, I’m sensing you’re the kind of teacher who’s whipped.” Jessica pushed back her chair and stood up, slamming her fists upon the desk. “Leave.” Terry did the opposite of her request, making his way around the desk to her. One of her angry fists fell off the wooden surface when he squeezed himself into the small space between her hips and her desk, the fabric of her skirt brushed her inner thighs as he moved against her. Jessica’s chest heaved. Terry’s hand clutched her jaw, his thumb tracing her loud breathing mouth. He was about to lean in and kiss her when Jessica reached for an old-fashioned ruler and whipped him with it. Terry grimaced as pain spread through his waist. But he didn’t reach to rub it, like he appeared to want to. He just stared back at her with that pain. She tilted her head at him with a teasing smile, until she felt his fingertips reaching up from under her skirt. They didn’t make contact with her, but maybe his fingers drew breath, because she sensed a breath drumming back and forth against her thighs. Jessica breathed out, unable to take it anymore. Her nipples hardened. She reached down, grabbing Terry's free hand and clasped it against one of her breasts. From his face, she knew he liked it. His fingers now pressed against her, sliding deep inside with no introduction. She suppressed a groan. Then in one move, as if they’d rehearsed for it, they adjusted themselves in a position where Jessica was slumped back against her chair, one leg dangling around Terry’s shoulder as he kneeled to the floor, his tongue rippling inside her. She smelled blood. Terry’s cut must’ve opened again and trickled. Her back arced and her head dropped back, churning out groans she no longer suppressed.  
A few seconds later, Jessica lay against her desk, her eyes shut as she breathed hard, trying to take what had just happened. Two more minutes, she thought. I’ll keep my eyes closed for two more minutes and then class can start and the students can spill in. For now, she just wanted to revel in the little explosions that sparked everywhere through her body. If only it were real and not a dream.  
Her head snapped up, awake at the sounds of the approaching students. The classroom was still empty, but the stampede noises of their shoes going up the stairs filled the hallway.  
Jessica stood up, overcome by a strange urge. Her eyes fell on the window across the room and her boggled-faced reflection stared back at her. But it didn’t matter how disoriented she was at this moment, her guts told her that this time there was no stopping herself.  
Just as the advancing students shadowed the hallway right outside her classroom, Jessica grabbed her purse and run towards the door.  
“Miss Jessica?” a voice from the storeroom stopped her. Nada and Amira were standing there, carrying a bunch of art material in their arms. Both stared at Miss Jessica with a more boggled expression than the one the blond had seen in her own reflection.  
“Sorry, girls, class is dismissed,” said Jessica, sliding the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “I know, I’m surprised, too.”  
She thought of taking out her shades, but then decided she did not need them where she was going, for what she was about to do. About thirty students filed into her classroom, baffled as they watched her pass them out the door. She dashed through the now less crowded hallway, making her way to Principal Radeeni’s office.


	7. Chapter 7

Jessica was walking out of the school building twenty minutes later, sunglasses on her nose, her head tilted downward, her hand fidgeting with the strap of her purse on her shoulder as if she was a timid middle school girl. All she could see in front of her were the tiles of the playground alternating under her moving feet, but their various colors were tinted now from behind her shades.  
Principal Radeeni was mad, but that wasn’t what she was worried about. In fact, given what she’d just done, she wasn’t worried about anything at all. Perhaps, that was why she was in a daze.  
Jessica stopped in her tracks to stare at a leaf that had fallen from a tree somewhere and that the wind had carried all the way to the tips of her feet. She kneeled down to peer at it, enjoying the air that rippled against her cheeks and brushed her hair back as she did so, enjoying also the quiet here with all the teenagers sitting inside their classrooms. While tilting her head to take in the details of the leaf, she suddenly noticed someone standing over her.   
“Elizabeth!” Jessica clutched her chest. “You gave me a fright.”  
Elizabeth seemed out of breath. It didn’t show, but Jessica knew when her sister’s nostrils were ever so slightly, yet rapidly flaring and narrowing, it meant Elizabeth was out of breath. The pony-tailed sister just knew how to hold back her uncontrollable panting.  
“Principal Radeeni had just called me to his office,” said Elizabeth in a thin voice. “And told me what happened.” She then parted her lips to inhale deeply, and a frown fell on her face as she exhaled with shut eyes. “What the hell were you thinking?” Her voice was no longer thin and breathless. Her eyelids slid up, revealing the disturbed aquamarines. “Quitting your job?”  
“Oh, that,” said Jessica, matter-of-factly. She straight up and folded her arms in front of her, her weight shifting to one side. “Do you have a problem with that?”  
Taken aback, Elizabeth cried, “No, you have a problem with that. Do you remember–”  
“No, Elizabeth,” Jessica interrupted her, sauntering past her twin sister. “I don’t have a problem with that. Life needs to be lived.”  
Before she reached the school gate, she turned. Elizabeth was still watching her, stunned.   
“Go back to your class,” Jessica called out to her. “I recall there’s a virus paper you need to review. And wait,” she added spreading her arms out. “Maybe it will teach you a thing or two. Like just because you and I are living under the same roof where our germs mix, doesn’t mean our boundaries and values have to mix, as well, so don’t tell me what I should have a problem with according to your ideals. In other words…” Jessica gave her shades a forceful push up her nose. “You’re a virus, Elizabeth. A virus who only cares about surviving. I care about living.”  
She didn’t look back at her sister after that. She walked straight to her car, enjoying the silence of the parking lot. It was bigger than the silence in the playground, and she realized why. She was far away from the students, far away from the rules, far away from this old life she’d spent on those school grounds for the past nine years, including the three years after her parents’ death. Jessica was far away from all that.  
She unlocked her car as a breeze hit her neck. Something felt strange about that breeze, cooler, and she immediately recognized where she’d experienced it before – when she saw Skippy, or the ghost of Skippy, on the side of that road earlier. But when she looked up in the direction where that breeze came from, she saw the figure of a man standing across from the highway outside the parking lot.   
Terry?  
The fold on his left jean leg was unmistakable.  
She shook her head, not wanting to go there. That dream she had of him made her want to forget him, to disassociate with him. If she’d developed feelings for him – or, not feelings, but an attachment, at least – it would be too complicated given he was seeing her sister. Or was, at least, going on a date with her in the city center, and for Elizabeth to agree to drive all the way to the city to meet someone, an almost stranger, meant it was something big.  
Without a second thought, Jessica clicked her car door open and climbed in. She took off her sunglasses and put them in the glove compartment, then started the engine. But there was something bizarre about the scent of her car. Along with the stuffy heat smell, there was the hint of another scent. Blood.  
“Hello, Jessica,” a male voice said.  
She whirled her head around and found Terry sprawled over the backseat, his legs bent so he could fit inside the width of the car. The cut on his left knee trickled with blood, even more blood than it let out the night before. She stared at him with shock. First off, why wasn’t he fainting or showing the slightest sign of weakness upon the sight of his blood like before? And second…  
“How did you get all the way over from...? And how are you in my car?”  
Terry grabbed the edge of the passenger’s seat and pulled himself up into a sitting position. “All the way from where?” was his reply to her first question.  
She turned to look out her window. The other side of the highway was just empty. She could’ve only imagined him, the way she imagined Skippy. Her chest heaved. She missed that dog.  
But now wasn’t the time for grief. Jessica turned her head back around to Terry.  
“Terry,” she said. “You’re weird. Would you tell me, please, how you did you get inside my car? And why are you not having a fainting spell from how your cut is oozing so much blood right now?”  
She looked at it, it stained the folded edges of his jeans. With a sigh, she removed three tissues from her tissue box and passed them to him. “Don’t get blood on my car.”  
With a sigh and also a sneaky smile, Terry took the tissues from her, crumpled them and dabbed them on his cut. Without looking up, he said, “You shouldn’t pay much attention to deatils that won’t make a difference to you, Jessica. It doesn’t matter how I got inside your car.” She was about to respond, when he added, “What you should be focusing on instead is a celebration.”  
Her brows were so drawn together, they almost cast a shadow over her vision. “A celebration of what?”  
He tucked the bloodied tissues into his jean pocket then stared out the window. “Of you finally quitting your job.”  
Jessica’s jaw dropped.  
“I’m assuming you’re about to ask me how the hell I know about that,” Terry said, still looking out the window. “But like I said, inconsequential details.”  
By then, Jessica was certain something unusual was happening. Not unusual as in uncommon, but as in things beyond what her logical mind could fathom. There were so many missing pieces here, but even if she had the power to find them all, she was sure the result would be still a lot mystical. But that was ridiculous, right?  
“Jessica, please, roll with it.”  
He didn’t need to encourage her to do so. She already rolled with it. Only not in a positive way.  
Jessica’s fists fell against her steering wheel in convulsive rage. “What the hell have I just done? Terry, I quit my job of almost ten years! What was I thinking?”  
Terry leaned forward between the two front seats, his eyes the most serious she’d ever seen them. “You were thinking you couldn’t be in this rut anymore. You were thinking, I’m Jessica Wakefield, someone who takes control of her life and doesn’t let crap build up for long. Someone who will now go after what they feel in their bones they must do.”  
An awkward silence then fell between them, with Jessica’s fists falling and unfolding in her lap, her sea green eyes stared at their reflection in the windshield, a crease between their brows.  
“What I must do? What’s that?”  
“Jessica,” whispered Terry, raising his right arm to rest it on top of the passenger’s seat. “You’re the only one who can answer that.”  
Her eyes veered to the rearview mirror, meeting Terry’s gaze. She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Actually, this was a mistake, me quitting my job. I only did it because…”  
Her voice trailed off and Terry’s brows rose.  
“Because what, Jessica?”  
Her nostrils flared as she breathed. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”  
“No, say it.”  
“Fine.” She didn’t what came over her to reveal such a thing. “I had a crazy dream about you. It… I don’t know messed with my head or something. It gave me this uncanny impulse and the next thing I knew I was walking to the principal’s office, resigning. In the middle of the schoolyear, which is unacceptable. But I did it. For what? I acted out of intoxication.”  
“You acted out of your very own strength, and heart.” He paused. “Besides, it was not a dream.”  
Jessica laughed. “Right. You don’t even know what that dream was about. If you did, you’d say–”  
“Jessica, it was not a dream” Terry said in a strange tone, it reminded Jessica of Liz’s monotone voice. “I was upstairs. You touched me, I you.”  
Again, she laughed, looking back at him. “Of course, you’re so into yourself, you’d immediately assume the dream I had was a dirty one of you and me.”  
“Jessica,” said Terry again, and this time leaned his face closer to hers. “See for yourself.”  
Knowing what he meant by that, she brought her nose to his face and just as she feared, her scent was all over him.   
“No,” she breathed out, pulling away from him. “It wasn’t real.”  
“Well, it was.”  
Jessica stared to her front. “But I had two students up there. If what you say happened for real, they would’ve been like traumatized or something.”  
“How do you know they weren’t? You didn’t give them time to react. You fled out of that classroom faster than cockroaches flooding out of a manhole.”  
She grimaced. “Is that the only analogy you could think of?”  
Terry shrugged. “I’m not very creative.”  
“You’re disgusting.”   
Terry just smiled as if he’d won a fight.   
Jessica sighed, thoughtful. “I don’t think Nada and Amira saw anything as they were buried deep inside my jungle-like storeroom.”  
But could she really be sure of that?  
“Shit,” she spat out in the next second. “If those two students saw something, I’m in so much trouble. More than I thought I was.”  
“That is only if you stay in your old job at school. But if you choose a whole new other life for yourself, that trouble you say you’re in will evaporate.”  
That sounded so tempting, but where would she go from here?  
As if reading her mind, Terry said, “Drive.”  
She did.


	8. Chapter 8

They arrived in the city center forty minutes later. Jessica’s phone hadn’t stopped ringing during most of the ride as she kept canceling on Elizabeth. Once she parked her car outside of a club, she silenced her phone and placed it in the glove compartment.  
“Let’s go,” she said. She and Terry stepped out of the car.  
“Isn’t it a little early for clubbing?” Terry observed as he followed her towards the old-fashioned looking nightclub. At 10 am, it would be close, by they found the door was open. The style of the club seemed to date back to the sixties, but it was well-maintained and looked as fresh as the newest clubs in town. As Jessica and Terry sauntered inside, looking around, a man approached them. Probably the manager.  
“Sorry,” he said. “But we open at six.”  
“Yes, sorry to barge in,” said Jessica, smiling politely. “But I’m here to ask about the open mic night.”  
A glow fell on the manager’s face and he excused himself, asking them to wait. He came back with a flyer, which he handed to Jessica.  
“All the details are on here,” he said, eagerly. “You have to sign up beforehand.”  
Jessica skimmed the flyer quickly, before she turned her face up to the manager. “Perfect,” she said. “I’d like to sign up. When is the next show?”  
“Tonight.”  
After giving the manager all the required details, Jessica looked to Terry with excitement before they walked out the door.  
“Open mic?”  
“I always wanted to try one of those. I always wanted to sing in front of an audience. Elizabeth thinks I can’t sing. She prefers it when I stick to painting, but why not expand my talents?”  
Terry looked worried.  
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re on Elizabeth’s side.”  
“Well,” he said. “She’s your sister. I’d believe her judgements about you more than anyone else.”  
“More than me?” Jessica stopped in her tracks to turn and face him with wide eyes.  
Terry gave her a subtle smile. “You said you wanted to try open mic, not that you’re good at it.”  
She gave him a sneer before their continued on their path back to her car.  
“If you were a confident singer,” Terry said. “You would’ve picked a hipper club, like one you and your friends go to. Not a club that attracts the exact same crowd of people it hosted in nineteen-seventy-two.”   
“My parents used to go there.”  
Jessica’s steps slowed down. Her arms folded around her waist with her head dropped down. She stood like this for a few seconds before she reached for her car door and climbed inside.  
Terry took the passenger’s seat this time. Jessica didn’t start the car. She looked to him, and went on by saying, “They loved that place. When Liz and I were still kids, we used to beg them to take us to that place of entertainment they went to every weekend. We’d often hear them talk to their friends on the phone about that crazy night they had with that amazing music. Mother would tell us about the unique designs the club had, especially those glasses they served drinks in. One day she came home and was so excited, because she’d found a glass set that looked somewhat like the glasses at that club. Father claimed they looked nothing like them at all, but Mother refused to listen to him. Father took his camera the next time they went to the nightclub, so he could take a picture of the glasses and after a week when those pictures came out, he showed them to us. He was right. They looked nothing like the set Mother had bought. Mother was a little mad at him for ruining her excitement, but he promised her glasses were better. We still have that set. Although, one or two glasses broke. The pink and the orange one. They each had a different color, you see.”  
By the time she finished the story, she found a weird look on Terry’s face.  
“Did I say too much?”  
Terry shook his head, a faint smile on his lips. “Not at all.”  
Jessica turned to rest her eyes on the shaking trees outside the windshield. “Can you imagine how Liz doesn’t remember this story now? It’s sad. I try to make her remember, but she’d stopped taking out the glass set out of the cupboard in fear I’d start talking about this memory again. It’s not that it hurts Liz to remember, or to not be able to remember. My sister just doesn’t care about those details as much as I do.”  
Her pressed hand against her chest as she breathed in, the air almost seared her. She exhaled and looked to Terry. “Am I too… hooked on details? Do I make things harder on myself than they should be?”  
“I don’t know,” said Terry, his voice full of sympathy as he stared out his window at the passing cars. “All I know is sometimes humans need help figuring things out. That is why I’m here.”  
“What?” Jessica’s heart began to beat fast. “Humans? Why you’re here?”  
Terry didn’t say another word.  
“Terry,” she said, leaning her head towards him. “What are you?”  
His face turned to her. “What do you think?”  
“I don’t know. Tell me.”  
He reached his hand to hers. Automatically, her palm faced upward to invite his in and their fingers interlaced.  
“Inconsequential details,” Terry said. Jessica stared into his eyes and before she could help it, leaned closer to him.   
“No,” he said, moving away from her. His smile was confident, but his voice wasn’t. “You might not like me once you discover what I am.”  
Jessica gave him a playful smile. “Fine, I won’t try to kiss you anymore.”  
She grabbed her keys to start her car, but stopped. Turning to Terry, she said, “There’s nowhere we need to be right now and we have plenty of time before the club opens. How about we start with a walk?”


	9. Chapter 9

The walk along the river was nice and calming enough to have Jessica spend hours reflecting on which song to sing that night.  
“I could sing my favorite song,” she mused aloud. “But it’s not edgy enough.”  
Her eyes then fell on an instrument shop across the street. “Terry, let’s go. I need to buy a guitar.”  
“Do you know how to play?”  
Jessica shrugged. “Some of my friends taught me a few chords. Come on, I can’t sing at an open mic without an instrument.”  
Twenty minutes later, she had a guitar hanging from her shoulder and was leaning against the riverbank railing, practicing chords. People stared at her as they passed, but she ignored them and kept strumming on the instrument. Her fingers hurt, but they were already used to tough strings from having played at a friend’s house every once and a while, and so it didn’t hurt as much and was able to play. She played better than she thought she would, yet a small voice inside her told her she might be a better guitar player than she was a singer. She ignored that inner critic.  
“Good tunes,” said Terry, looking a little sweaty in the sun and tired. “Now can we rest that guitar in your trunk and go get something to drink? Even better, to eat?”  
The outdoor restaurant they picked was surrounded by mossy cliffs, so high and closed in on each other at the top where only a thin shard of blue sky was visible. Because of the damp cliffs, the air smelled like rain on a concrete. Small bulbs of amber lights lit the place, and the tables were small and covered with white embroidered cloths.  
“There’s so much green here,” said Jessica, looking at the patches of moss on the cliffs above her, and at the tall grass that tickled her ankles. “It’s nice.” She paused. “It’s also sad.”  
“Why?” said Terry from across from her, busy with the scarf Jessica lent him from her car. He had covered his knee with it so they could have access into the restaurant, but now it had gone loose again and he worked on reattaching it. He failed and just let the scarf lie there, loose. His wound was now hidden under the table, anyway, facing the cliff on the other side from where the other customers sat.  
Jessica breathed in and pressed her lips together before she exhaled. After that moment of hesitation, she set her fork down. “When my parents had first bought our house, they were so excited to finally afford a home in the wilderness, far from the noise and the deafening pollution of the city, and to live amidst green and sweet-smelling air. Air that makes your cheeks glow, the way Father put it. Now they are going to deforest the area, and what Elizabeth doesn’t get is that what I feel I’m losing I’m losing aren’t just trees. It’s the life our parents had wished for us to have and had worked so hard to get. And having shopping centers replace all this is…” Her voice trailed off.  
She could see it in Terry’s eyes that he could feel her losing her parents all over again. No, worse, she was going to lose them forever, saying goodbye to the place, the scenery, the skies where the memory of them lived.  
“I used to look outside my window and see them, feel them with me.” Her head hung low as she struggled out the words. “Now I see the trees I’d have to say goodbye to soon, and this thought pierces my heart every time. What will I do when it actually happens?”  
Her hands tensed upon the surface of the table. Terry placed his hand on one of them and she turned her eyes turned up to him.  
“You’re… I don’t know what you are, but I know you are somewhat supernatural.” Her voice lowered as she let out the next sentence, which she didn’t believe she was actually going to say. “Can you… do something to change it? To stop it from happening?”  
“You mean stop companies from building shopping malls instead of the forests around your home?”  
Jessica nodded and Terry retreated his hand from hers. He sat up straight and pressed his back hard against his chair, as if trying to stay as far from Jessica as possible while still looking presentable in public. She scowled.  
“Of course, you can’t do something about it.” She glanced under the table, in the direction of his left knee with the falling scarf. “If you could, you would’ve healed that wound already.”  
The expression on Terry’s face changed. He stared at her with a devious look. Before she could ask what was going on, Terry took his knee out from under the table where only Jessica could see, the scarf landing on the grass. Jessica humored him and stared at his gash with boredom, until she saw it.  
The edges of his wound started to close in, the stains of blood turned liquid again but evaporated almost in the same second, and the cut was gone. No scar in its place. Then the leg of his jeans got released from its fold and fell back to his ankle in perfect condition. As though nothing had happened to it. No tears, no stains.  
“What…?”  
Jessica was unable to breathe for a moment, unable to take her eyes off Terry's knee. She was about to say something, but just picked up her fork and kept scooping her food and carrying it to her mouth in silence. Terry watched without touching his own plate.  
“Jessica,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “Have you ever lived some place other than your house in the forests in your adult life?”  
Jessica took a sip of her water, swallowing hard despite it being a tiny sip, then nodded, setting her glass down. “I shared an apartment with one of my friends in the city once for a period of time. Then I wanted to go live with my parents again, I wanted to be around them. That was one year before they passed, they went suddenly, you know. But when I moved back in with them, it was as if I felt I had to spend as much time with them as possible.” She stared at her finished plate. “As if I knew…”  
“It’s okay.” Terry waited for a moment before he added, “So you went to live in your parents’ house because of them, because you wanted to spend time with them, not because of the house.”  
“Of course, because of them!”  
“Then why are you depressed your house might not be the same again?”  
Jessica’s chest heaved. “Because I will lose them, lose their memories. I wanted to live the life they wanted for me, the green life. It is also a life I love.”  
“You didn’t love your other home, the one in the city?”  
She shrugged. “Too much city, too little forest.” But a moment later, she said in a low voice, “I slept better in the city.”  
“How come?”  
She was surprised he heard her. “How come I slept better in the city?” Jessica cleared her throat. “Probably all that noise blocked out my incessant thoughts at night.” Terry laughed, before she added in another quiet voice, “I don’t know. I just remember sleeping better, that’s all.”  
Terry stared at her. “Why is that so hard for you to admit?”  
She gave him a confused look, when the waitress arrived with the check.  
Jessica gave a breath of relief. “Saved by the check.”  
After she placed the cash on the table, she looked at Terry. “So that wound you got from that so-called exposed pipe was a ruse to weasel your way into mine and Elizabeth’s life?”  
Terry didn’t answer.  
Jessica narrowed her eyes. “What do you want from us, Terry?”  
“Why do you assume I want something from you?”  
She was about to answer when a familiar ringtone blasted through the air.  
“My phone.” Jessica frowned. “I left it in the car.” She fumbled through her purse, before she stopped to glance at the other busy tables in the restaurant, waving her hand at them. “It’s probably someone else’s with the same ringtone that’s ringing. I left mine in the car.”  
But Terry dropped something on the table in front of her and Jessica found herself staring at her own phone, Elizabeth’s name and picture appearing on screen. She silenced it then snapped her head up at Terry. “You took my phone from the car?”  
“And texted your sister, too,” he said with a casual nod. “Answer her.”  
“You had no right.”  
“What are you going to do, report me?”  
Jessica didn’t respond.  
“Answer her.”  
When she didn’t pick up her phone, he tilted his head at her with empathetic eyes. “She thinks you’re having a breakdown. She’s worried.  
“Let her worry!” She tossed her phone into her purse and got up. The damp moss scent played through her senses as she walked out of the restaurant.  
“Jessica,” Terry called as she crossed the street.  
It was getting darker out, almost sunset. Jitters started to flare up through her body as the time of the open mic drew near. That was the only reason she stopped in her tracks once she reached the other side of the street and turned with crossed arms to give him an annoyed, bored look. She didn’t want to face the open mic alone, as much as she despised his existence right now.  
Once he reached her side, Terry opened his mouth to say something when again her phone started ringing. She should remind herself not to have its volume on so high. She was a teacher after all, she had to be professional. She took it out and was about to turn off the ringing when, to her surprise, it wasn’t Elizabeth on the phone.  
“Unknown number,” she said, and stared at it till the number stopped calling her. Her face looked up to Terry. “Do you think she’s calling me from an unknown number, thinking I would fall for it?”  
Angrily, she turned away, about to continue on her path to the nightclub when a notification bell went off. With a huff, Jessica took out her phone again and stopped dead in her tracks when she looked at the screen.  
“What is it?” Terry observed her sudden freeze.  
“It’s…” She couldn’t speak so she handed him the phone.  
“A message from someone called Nada,” he said, and read the text aloud. “‘Miss Jessica, it’s me, Nada. Amira and me saw you. We need to talk.’”  
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said Jessica, her arms twitching. “They saw us in the classroom. They must’ve seen everything. Of course, they did.”  
“Jessica, breathe,” said Terry, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Calm down.”  
“I ruined my career. If Nada and Amira saw what you did to me in that classroom and filmed it... Of course, they filmed it. Those teenagers, you know what they do. They are plastered to their phones, filming and posting about anything and everything. Fucking Gen Z.”  
Jessica paced the pavement. Terry placed both his hands together, with the phone in between, and touched his fingertips to his lips.  
“Can we, please, try to resolve this in a logical way?”  
“No,” she said. “You’re the one who came to my classroom. It’s all your fault.”  
He just looked at her as if she was missing something.  
“What the hell are you looking at me that way for?”  
“Nothing,” he said. “But this is what you wanted. You wanted out. Now you are out, permanently.”  
“Let’s go,” she said, ignoring his last sentence, stomping in the opposite direction of where she was heading before.  
“Where?”  
“Back to my car. We will fix this.”  
“Jessica,” said Terry, reaching for her hand. She stopped and turned to face him, glancing down at his hand that held hers as if hoping it was a lifeline. “Jessica, if you try to fix the past, you will go nowhere. You will only be surrounded with broken pieces. Ghosts of broken pieces. If something is broken, leave it. It is not a reflection of you, nor is it a repeat of what you’ve lost before. Life just happens sometimes, it’s the way it is.”  
“You don’t know me,” panted Jessica. “Nor do you know anything about my life.”  
Terry pulled her closer to. His eyes bore into hers. “If I don’t know you, then why am I so sure you’re already regretting your decision to ditch the open mic to go see a teenager about a message?”  
“It could ruin my whole career.”  
“You’d still regret it.”  
Jessica stared back at him, wanting to yell but couldn’t. Something felt so familiar about his eyes in a way she couldn’t explain. The supernatural vibe she’d picked up earlier, supernatural and mysterious, emanated from him with great intensity now. She had no idea what it was, but he was right. She was already regretting walking away from her plans with the nightclub.  
“Fine,” she said, pulling her hand from his. With one last pissed look at him, she turned and continued walking to her car.  
“Why are you a still heading to your car? I thought you’re going to the nightclub.”  
“I forgot that my guitar is in my trunk, silly.”


	10. Chapter 10

Jessica was surprised to see Elizabeth waiting for them outside the nightclub. More surprised to see her sister in a fashionable black and white dress and her ponytail styled a way Elizabeth had always referred to as too bold for her taste.   
“Why are you here?” blurted out Jessica, observing Elizabeth heavy eyeliner and eyeshadow. This was not the way Elizabeth wore her makeup at all. If she ever went make-up wild, it would just be adding more foundation or heavier lined lips. Never the colorful eyeshadow.  
Elizabeth opened her mouth to respond but Jessica interrupted. “Terry told you I’m performing here, didn’t he? That’s why you’re here to…” She wanted to say stop me but glancing down at Elizabeth’s outfit again, Jessica was confused. Why would her sister dress for clubbing when she had only come here to take her sister home?  
That didn’t matter for Jessica was more mad at Terry for telling Elizabeth her plan, but when she turned round to yell at him, he was nowhere to be seen.  
“Where did that lunatic go?”  
“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth, her eyes searching the street. “He texted me to meet him here. He’s twelve minutes late.” Her eyes then turned to Jessica. “What about you? Why are you here?”  
Jessica’s face turned back to her. “What?”  
Was it her imagination, or was her ponytailed sister as surprised to see her?  
“And why are you holding a guitar? God, Jessica,” said Elizabeth, after glancing at a flyer hanging near the entrance of the nightclub. “Are you planning to like play at a talent show?”  
“It’s not a talent show.”  
“Jessica!” Elizabeth’s eyes – beautiful, almost unrecognizable painted eyes – widened with comprehension and shock. “Are you having a quarter-life crisis? Quitting your job and then this? What next, you’re going to buy a crazy expensive hot tub that’s not going to fit in our garden?”  
“So you’re making fun of me.” Jessica was holding her guitar up from its neck in one hand. If she felt awkward carrying it like that in front of Elizabeth, she wondered how she would feel holding it and strumming in front of a whole crowd.  
“You know what? Fuck all this,” said Elizabeth, flipping her smooth ponytail off her shoulder before she grabbed Jessica’s free wrist. “I don’t even know why I came here. You and I are going home.”  
“No.” Jessica pulled her hand away, stepping back. “I’m not going home. Not until I sing tonight.”  
“Sing?” said Elizabeth. “You hate singing.”  
“Everybody loves singing.”  
“No, you especially hate it.” But then, as if a realization took a hold of her, Elizabeth stepped back, and observed her sister before she asked in a calm voice, “Why do you want to sing tonight, Jessica?”  
Jessica stood silent, frowning at Elizabeth’s ridiculous question. Suddenly, she snapped, “You know what? You always told me my voice sucks, that is why I hate singing. Maybe I actually like singing. I will sing in front of an audience and see for myself if I do suck and if I do hate singing for real or not.”  
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Bullshit.” After she rolled her eyes for the second time, “Jessica, you can still get your job back.”  
“Why would I want it?”  
“Because your job is something you enjoy, something you love.”  
“I hate it.”  
“Do you?” said Elizabeth. “Remember a few years back how you used to love discovering new art projects with the kids, creating nice shit for them. It made them feel better about the world they’re living in. They even loved when you gave them those extra sessions on how to integrate art with their daily lives. You helped them make their life beautiful.”  
“What’s the point? Everything beautiful and everything I love goes away.”   
Elizabeth sighed, and lay a hand on Jessica’s shoulder. “Principal Radeeni will understand. If you want to continue working at the school, he’ll let you. He understands what we’re going through.”  
“Do you understand what we’re going through?”  
Taken aback by Jessica’s response, Elizabeth’s widened eyes began to tear up. Jessica’s heart beat fast. Did she reopen her sister’s wound? All that Jessica wanted was for Elizabeth to open up to her, to talk, the way she’d seen her do with Terry in the morning. But Jessica just realized that maybe asking for all that wasn’t worth making Elizabeth hurt. It was shocking being the one who causes pain to suddenly resurface on a loved one’s face.  
“Elizabeth…” said Jessica’s cracked voice. “I didn’t mean–”   
“You know,” said Elizabeth. “All I ever tried to do was make you happy, to help you keep the life you’ve always loved and wanted, the life I know you feel you are losing right now. I wanted to make you feel safe like our parents did. But now I realize nothing is going to replace that. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was interfering. I will stop now. Sorry.” She gestured at Jessica’s instrument. “Go have fun at your talent show.”  
“It’s not a talent show,” mumbled Jessica, this time with no trace of scorn in her tone. She kept glancing from Elizabeth’s sea green eyes to the ground, wanting to say more, but couldn’t find any words that might make the situation better.  
“Sorry I disappeared.” Terry was walking towards them. His joyful face turned from Elizabeth to Jessica. “What did I miss?”  
“Oh, nothing,” said Elizabeth. Just like that, the gloom on her face evaporated, replaced by a bright grin. “I’m glad to see you again, Terry.” Her voice sounded different, too cheery and un-monotone like for the Elizabeth Jessica knew.  
“You sure I didn’t miss anything?” said Terry, staring at Jessica, who remained as glum as she was during the conversation she’d just had with her sister.  
“Nothing at all,” said Elizabeth, and it sounded like she meant it. “In fact, I was about to question Jessica about her life decisions, but silly me.” She threw her head back with laughter. “Why would I do that?”   
“Elizabeth,” Jessica whispered. “Are you okay?”   
It sounded like the dressed-up twin didn’t care at all what Jessica was planning to do tonight. Even though a second ago, Elizabeth was almost freaking out about it.  
“Of course, I’m okay.” Elizabeth’s her cheeks flushing red with excitement. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m here with a fun company,” gesturing towards Terry. “And you’re about to go in there and knock people’s socks off by your splendid singing.”  
“Splendid?” Jessica was confused with Elizabeth’s word choice. She turned to Terry. “What are you doing to her? This isn’t her.” She glanced at the guitar in her hand. “This isn’t me either!”  
“Is it really not you, Jessica?”  
Deep down she knew Terry was right. Her quitting her job and signing up for an open mic was totally her. Or at least, the her when there were no limits or consequences to whatever she chose to do. Maybe that was the case with Elizabeth, too. That deep down inside, beneath the practical modest exterior, Elizabeth was actually someone who enjoyed clubbing with a freaky stranger and couldn’t care less what her sister, Jessica, did with her own life.  
“We’re going to be late,” said Elizabeth, and placed her arm around Terry’s.  
“Right,” said Terry, giving her a smile from above his shoulder. “Bye, Jess. We’re going to go now.”  
“What? Go where?”  
“We’re on a date,” Elizabeth said, patting Terry’s arm. “I’m excited.”  
“Date? Where?”  
Terry gave a snort-laugh, his eyes glancing at the glowing sign of the nightclub. “Not here.”  
“Not here?! So you’re not going to watch me sing?”  
“No, sorry, Jessica. I have something planned for me and Elizabeth tonight.”  
Elizabeth gave Jessica a friendly wave before she and Terry went on their way.  
With a dropped jaw and a network of mixed emotions pulsating through her, Jessica watched them till they turned around a corner and disappeared out of her sight. Finally settling on one a single emotion – stunned – Jessica kicked open the door of the nightclub and marched inside.


	11. Chapter 11

After waiting for two hours in the club for her turn to sing, Jessica’s name finally got called. She set her drink down on her table, grabbed her guitar from under it and shuffled towards the stage. The nightclub had filled in by now, and as she climbed on the stage, the sea of people below looked denser than she thought she could handle.  
Jessica climbed on the stool, balanced the guitar on one knee, and swallowed, trying to push her nervousness away. But as she stared harder at the crowd, she remembered who she was. She was Jessica Wakefield. Confidence was her spirit animal.   
Taking a deep breath in, Jessica winked at her audience and gave them a toothy smile. “I quit a job today to be here, so you better enjoy this.”  
The audience laughed and her nervousness soon evaporated, replaced by excitement. Jessica placed her fingers on the fretboard and started playing.  
Her voice was bad, that was evident from the first two notes. The song was a known one and wasn’t hard to sing, but she sang it badly. In the middle of the first verse, she paused to drop her head and gave a little laugh before she carried on singing. Once she reached the chorus, the audience began to clap their hands to the melody as they probably took pity on her.  
“Thanks for thinking I deserve it,” cried Jessica before she started singing the second verse. By then, the crowd was cheering, their enjoyment a genuine blaze. Jessica sang louder, till they joined. Soon, the whole room was part of the performance, singing with the few others who didn’t know the song clapping and whistling. Jessica even glimpsed an elderly couple clinking their glasses together to the beat. It was adorable.  
Then… bit by bit, Jessica began to notice it… how people were cheering, liking this song, how it felt wrong to like this song… why were they cheering?   
Jessica, while still singing, now felt hate towards anyone who clapped and cheered.   
And why was she here, singing? This song especially? It wasn’t a cool song, it wasn’t one of Jessica’s favorites, or a song she cared to listen to. She even always changed the radio channel whenever that song came on. So why did she choose this song?  
Why do you want to sing tonight, Jessica? As Elizabeth’s words rang through her ear, the nightclub from around her phased into a different scene and she was no longer sitting on a stage.   
She was suddenly sitting inside a car, in the backseat. Elizabeth next to her, their parents in the front, her father driving. The same song she was playing on stage was now playing on the car radio. Skippy wagged his tail, though he remained low under Jessica’s knees. He hated car rides. Hated glancing out the window as it moved, that was why Jessica steadied him with her legs.  
The air brushed Jessica’s face as it spilled through her rolled down window. She smiled, enjoying it, then reached down to pat Skippy. As she sat back up, she made eye-contact with Elizabeth. Her sister gave her a smile before turning to stare out her own window, which, unlike Jessica, Elizabeth liked to keep rolled up because it made her hear the music better.  
Jessica watched Elizabeth bob her head to the tune playing on the radio and rolled her eyes. “You always have the worst taste in music.”  
The pony-tailed sister turned to her, a frown on her face as she tried to think of a comeback.   
Jessica rolled her eyes again, about to comment on how slow Elizabeth was with comebacks, when it happened.  
Jessica only had time to look to the front and see the approaching headlights shining over her parents’ shoulders. A light that wasn’t supposed to be so near, so opposite in their direction.  
The next thing she knew, the world outside the windows were spinning, Skippy yelping, and then darkness and unending sounds of branches scratching and cracking against the windshield as the car rolled over down a steep slope of undergrowth. It had to come to an end, she knew it had to come to an end. Her hand shook over her seatbelt.   
It did. The car came to a stop. One that made it turn over. After this half of a second that felt like eternity where the car was balancing on its bumper had passed, the vehicle finally obeyed gravity and dropped, crashing into water.  
The lake was deep and the car sunk quietly. But then after some blackness had passed, she found herself gliding upward towards the surface of the lake.   
Then blackness again.  
She was opening her eyes and gulping out water. People surrounding her. Sirens.  
More blackness.  
This time she opened her eyes to another different scene. She didn’t remember where she was sitting, or standing, or if it was night or day. All she remembered was the newspaper page in her hand. The picture of a car being pulled out of a lake, underneath it written: Jessica Wakefield, only survivor.   
Not even poor Skippy had made it.  
Jessica was back in the nightclub. People were staring, silent. Jessica was no longer singing. The only sounds the mic was picking up were the small knocks her nervous knee produced as they twitched against the guitar.   
Was the song she was singing over? Or did she stop in the middle of it?  
It didn’t matter. She was lucky she was back in reality, in the present. Not three years ago, not reliving this dreadful memory that had changed her life forever.   
Taking herself out of it, was exactly like being pulled out of that lake. She had to struggle before she could breathe normally again. Or, at least, bring air to her lungs again. Regaining normal breathing still felt like a stretch to her, even after three years later.  
Jessica got up from the stool and let go of her guitar. It crashed onto the stage, startling her. She only gave it one glance then leaped off the stage, pushing her way through the crowd. The people in the club kept asking her what was wrong to a point where she leaned down over her knees and gave out a cry till they left her alone. Outside, she looked for Liz.   
“Liz!” she called in the fresh air. “Elizabeth!”  
“Jessica,” a familiar voice sounded behind her. She turned. Her whole group of friends, the same one she’d hung out with the night before, were standing there giving her concerned faces. They were all dressed for a night out.  
Jessica frowned. “What are you doing here?” For this club wasn’t at their usual hangout spots, or even their style.  
“You texted us. Remember?” said Lila, Jessica’s best friend, and the roommate whom she had lived with in the city.   
Lila was showing Jessica her phone screen. There was indeed a text from Jessica’s number telling the group to meet them here. But it wasn’t she who sent it. Terry, she thought. He must’ve texted her friends when he had her phone and asked them to come watch her sing.  
Thankfully, they came late. She would’ve hated it if they found out about the song. Well, it was a well-known song. Still, she would’ve hated it if anyone she had to make eye-contact with again saw her sing it, even if they had no idea.  
Jessica staggered back.  
“You don’t seem well,” Lila said, putting her phone away to reach out her hand to the blonde. “Do you want me to take you home? I can sleep over.”  
“No,” snapped Jessica. “I don’t want that.” Her eyes flitted from each face in the friends group. “Stop looking at me like there’s something wrong. Nothing’s wrong.”  
“Jessica, please, let me take you home, at least.”  
“No thank you, Lila.” She then turned and ran till she reached her car. Lila was a fast runner, even in heels, so Jessica knew she couldn’t outrun her. As soon as she unlocked the vehicle, she felt the hand on her shoulder.  
Lila’s face pleaded, till Jessica acquiesced, handing her the keys. Then she made her way around the car to climb into the passenger’s seat.  
Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the window – Elizabeth liked to keep them rolled up – and only focused on the movement of her car caused by Lila’s driving.   
All through the ride home, Lila remained quiet. Jessica was thankful for that. Her ex-roommate had always been good at sensing others’ needs without having to ask so many questions. Jessica remembered how grateful she had been for that.  
The rest of the group were following them in another car so that Lila could find a ride home. The wastelands swallowed the city, the house loomed over the wastelands.  
“Just leave the car out here,” said Jessica, as Lila stopped outside of the garden gate.  
“Are you sure?”  
Jessica nodded. “I’ll park the car inside later.”  
She didn’t want Lila to go inside the garden, not that her friend would see anything.  
Lila stepped out of the car and handed Jessica her keys. “You sure you don’t want me to sleep over?”  
Jessica’s lips pressed together and before she could say anything, Lila nodded. “I’ll check on you in the morning. Get some sleep.”  
She watched Lila make her way to the other car with the rest of their friends and soon the shine of the headlights disappeared from her sight.  
With a heavy breath, Jessica turned and unlocked the garden gate, shutting them behind her once she’d entered. She shut her eyes, but it came back. It always came back.  
“Help me bury Skippy,” said a voice behind her.


	12. Chapter 12

When Jessica turned to face her house and garden, she saw Elizabeth there, holding the dead body of a German shepherd. The twin’s face was covered in mud, and some had gotten on her ponytail, too. She reached her hand up to Jessica from where she sat next the hole in the ground.  
Jessica shook her head. “Skippy already got buried. So have you.”  
Elizabeth only looked at her for a moment, then repeated, “Jessica, help me bury Skippy.”  
Jessica screamed. “No!”  
She ran inside the house after fumbling with the lock and key.  
Ghosts. They are ghosts.  
They were here every night. Out here they’d be, next to the hole in the ground.  
“Don’t follow me.” Jessica’s hands rose to grab a bunch of her hair when the Elizabeth she saw every night entered the house as it did every night.  
But the Elizabeth didn’t listen to Jessica, and instead gave her a serious gaze and said, “Jessica, you need to be more rational than this. Instead of crying and getting mad at the world, help me bury Skippy.”  
“I will not help you do anything. You need to leave. You’re not real. Because you’re a ghost.” She looked around. “And this house is not real, because the forest Mother and Father loved will be gone. Everything that’s beautiful and means something goes away. And if it left any traces behind, those traces get overridden by something else. Something vapid and horrendous. I can’t live expecting grief and loss to follow me everywhere, expecting beauty and warmth to go away even if it’s still standing in front of me. I’m not living, I’m only surviving. Like a virus, everything I do and thing is nothing more than a tool for survival.”  
Tool.  
An idea pricked Jessica’s brain and she looked towards the living-room window. Outside, the garden shed seemed to call out to her, beckon her. Jessica thought for a moment, struggling with this new idea that came to her, but when Elizabeth took a step closer towards her, Jessica marched out of the house. She reached the garden shed and peered inside it. And there it was.  
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth was now standing behind her, and then the ghost eyes widened as they fell on what Jessica had picked up from the shed. “Jess, put that chainsaw down.”  
Jessica turned around with the heavy dusty thing, and stared Elizabeth cold in the eye. “You never called me Jess.”  
She carried the chainsaw inside the house, into the kitchen. There she realized everything had gone still. Jessica stopped and looked over her shoulder. Elizabeth was no longer following her, was nowhere to be seen. It was as if that ghost was no longer here.  
Ignoring the newfound fact, Jessica continued to cross the kitchen to get to the door that led to the back garden.   
Making her way through the long, uncut grass, she looked up beyond the fence. The trees of the forest on the other side spilled their lush branches over the fence. They were lean-trunked trees, although she never remembered their name. Their round leaves were so smooth and glimmered under the sun during the day, and by night, they rippled with liquid moonlight rippled. She and her parents would sit in this garden during different times of the day and just stare out at those trees, her father would tell her all sorts of facts about them. She loved them, but still couldn’t remember what they were called.  
Jessica unlocked the back-garden gate and crept out into the forest. Beneath the tall plush branches the air smelled juicy green. The light of the full moon fell so bright on most trunks, revealing their veiny details.  
She took a second to admire them, standing in a small clearing, before she turned on the chainsaw and started to chop off those trunks. She had no idea how she didn’t get hurt, or maybe it was because those trunks were so lean, but she managed to chop them all down. Then deeper she headed into the forest, where the thicker trunks were.   
Attacking those, too, her lips quivering all the while, Jessica wondered how she was able to handle such a tool so smoothly, when a lose heavy branch got disrupted and was about to drop right on top of her, and Jessica saw it. The supernatural force that pushed it midair out of the way. The force that had been helping her use a chainsaw, destroy a whole part of a forest with it.  
Jessica’s eyes searched the forest. Then turning off the tool, she lowered it to her knees, while she stared straight at the outline of the man standing ten feet across from her, between the space of two thick-trunked trees.  
“Are you satisfied now?” said Terry.  
Jessica nodded. It was shadowy where she stood, but she was sure he could see her expression. Terry approached her. As a reflex Jessica lifted the chainsaw at him. He laughed.  
“You did it,” she said, crying out tears. The realization of what she had just done suddenly overcoming her. She glanced at all the destroyed trees, the memories. Her home. What had she done? Fifteen years of memories destroyed in one night. And it wasn’t coming back. “You affected me! Like how you inspired me to quit my job! You made me do this!”  
“No.” Terry shook his head, slowly taking another step towards her. “I only protected you from losing a limb, you moron. Chopping down your parents’ memories is your own doing, and you’ve been wanting to do it that way before I even showed up.”  
While still gripping the chainsaw, Jessica leaned down, crying against her knees. “You asshole, why did you come here?”  
“I came to show you what you’ve been suppressing for so long.” Terry lay a hand on the chainsaw as if asking her to drop it. She only gripped it tighter.  
“Jessica, haven’t you had enough? Come on, drop that chainsaw and let’s go inside for a talk.”  
She stood up straight. “I will not talk until you tell me what you really are… or why you are.”  
Terry made a sudden movement as he reached for the chainsaw. Jessica, in response, snatched it away, but this only caused the machine to come back to life. Its deafening whine cut through the air. Terry screamed. Blood spilled out like a turbulent sea of midair red. Jessica staggered backwards, panicking. She glanced down at the blood-dotted tool in her hand before she dropped it to the ground and ran towards the house.   
Inside, her hands shook, her legs shook, they couldn’t support her. She flung herself over the kitchen counter, panting. The window in front of her faced the back garden and she drew down the blinds. Out in the forest, Terry’s wails and the mechanical chainsaw moan continued. She shut her eyes to remove the image from her mind, the image of the spinning teeth that entered Terry’s waist after they cut off his arm.   
With a mixture of tears, sweat, and clanking teeth, Jessica’s body glided off the counter to the floor. She sat with her knees bent against her and she pounded her head against them. What the hell? What the hell?  
Then the noises outside seemed to stop suddenly. Jessica stood up to peer out through the blinds. Her heavy breathing caused the slats to bounce against the glass with a click, click.  
Outside, the garden gate, which led to the disrupted forest, remained open wide. But there was no sign of Terry. Had she killed him? If so, why did the chainsaw stop whining also? Had he turned it off? How could he, if he were dead?  
A sob escaped her, a second sob, then Jessica began to wail. Her palm beat against the hard floor and she pulled at her hair with her other hand. Everything seemed upside down. It was hard to distinguish the screeches her lungs filled the kitchen with from the ones going on in her head.  
Until a third sound broke in through the mix. She assumed, at first, it was the making of her mind, but it wasn’t. It was a male’s voice. And it was laughter.


	13. Chapter 13

Terry was standing in the living-room, his cheeks flushed and eyes glowed as he laughed. Jessica pressed her back against the edge of the counter. She wanted to be as far away from this loon as possible. She glanced down at his arm and side, where her chainsaw had hit earlier, but every limb and skin part was intact. No trace of blood or any wounds, as if nothing had happened to him.  
“Are you…” whispered Jessica, before his eyes met his. “Are you a ghost?”  
Terry grinned and shook his head. She then glanced at his left knee, remembering his wide cut that was there, the wide cut he’d magically healed at the restaurant.  
“But you are something, aren’t you? Something supernatural.”  
Terry laughed some more. Jessica couldn’t take it anymore. Her heart was still beating fast from the initial shock, and he was laughing. Plain laughing at her. She reached into the drawer behind her, grabbing forks and knifes before she tossed them at him. They didn’t reach him, of course.   
She grabbed a metal ladle and with it started chasing him around the living room area, while also flinging whatever cushions or ornaments she found in her way at him.  
“I’m sorry,” he cried. “But it was funny, wasn’t it?”  
“No, it was fucked up!”  
Terry sat up from behind the sofa he was using as cover to point a finger at her. “Yes, the look on your face was fucked up. You should’ve seen it.”  
She dropped the ladle and charged at him. Terry hid back behind the sofa, which she leaped over, next to him on the floor, grabbing his throat. “I could strangle you, but I don’t know if that would kill you, whatever creature you are.”  
Terry choked, his face growing red. “Wouldn’t you… love to know?”  
“You’re a moron, that’s all I need to know. You traumatized my shit.”  
Amidst his choking and bulging eyes, Terry gave a little shrug. “Well, I’m no… angel.”  
As soon as he said those words, Jessica stopped. She sat up straight, her grip around his neck loosened. Terry’s head, which rested on the floor, tilted, his eyes questioning hers. She just stared back at him. “But you are… aren’t you?”  
“I am what?”  
“An angel?”  
Her hands fell off of him as he rose. He gave her a displeased look, rubbing his neck, then sat against the back of the sofa, his elbows on his bent knees, his eyes to the floor.  
Jessica sat on her heels, hesitating. “What did you mean,” she started with a calm voice. “When you said, you came here to show me what I’ve been suppressing?”  
Terry glanced at her before his gaze fell back to the ground. “Nothing. I just wanted to sound deep.”  
Jessica laughed. With a start, Terry looked at her and then gave a hesitant but pleasant smile.  
Once she stopped laughing, Jessica heaved a long sigh then turn to sit side to side with Terry against the back of the sofa. In this shadowed, narrow space between the flowery upholstery and the living-room wall, a space she’d never spent time in before, it was like Jessica was in a different dimension of her own house.  
“But,” she said a moment later. “I knew you since I was a kid. Were you also… not human then?”  
“I wasn’t, Jessica.”  
“But you had a mom.”  
“I said I had a mom, but have you ever seen her?” He turned his face to her.   
Jessica’s brows rose as she slowly shook her head. All those swimming lessons and now was the first time where she’d noticed Terry’s parents had never actually attended one.   
“What about your online profile? All those pictures?”  
“If you check my friend list you’d find I’ve only got seventeen, which is also the number of mutual friends we have. I created this profile so you’d feel more comfortable around me. You did, anyway, with or without that profile, but you needed it to…”  
“Convince my logic I was comfortable around you.” Jessica gave a snort-laugh. “So it’s a fake profile but not really a fake profile because it is your picture on it.”  
The corner of his lips lifted in a smirk and he gazed back at his front. But Jessica remained looking at him, observing the curves of his hair falling against his dark temples, his eyes thoughtful, a freckle on his right cheek. It was hard to believe he wasn’t human.  
“You’ll come back, right?” She found herself asking. “When I need you?”  
His eyes met hers again. “Of course, Jessica, I will. I’m always here. I was there for your bad grades, and I’m here for…”  
“For what?” She was dying to know.  
Terry’s lips pressed in a faint smile. “Ask yourself. Why did you choose that particular night for me to show up? To reveal myself to you? For me to,” he rolled his eyes, “inspire you, as you call it, to take an action.”  
“Quitting my job was not an action I wanted to take,” she now admitted. “It was a cry for help. I felt stuck in a life I didn’t want to go on living. Or I wanted to live it, but didn’t know how. I was scared to let myself breathe, to feel safe again, Terry. I am scared.”  
“Well,” he said, reaching for her hand. “You don’t need to let being scared make you not want to live. There’s a lot of loss in life, I give you that, but your parents didn’t want you to have this house with the surrounding forest so you could live scared of losing it. They wanted you to have it so you can have beauty, right?”  
“Yes,” she said, realizing she was sobbing. “Beauty. Like this forest, this pure fresh air, and beautiful trees they wanted me to live next to forever.”  
Terry shook his head. “They gave you more than that.”  
Jessica wiped a tear and gave him a confused look.  
“They gave you this beautiful house to remind you of how you can always give yourself and others beauty, or whatever you choose to give them. It’s the act, not the house. They gave you knowledge that such an act exists. Hold on to that, for this never goes away.”  
Jessica’s fingers tightened around Terry’s. At this moment, the image of her students, Nada and Amira, the image of their faces asking her to share tips on how to make their rooms beautiful came to her mind. If she could recall correctly, from what she’d heard from the other teachers about Nada, it was that her parents were on the verge of getting a divorce. And she’d overheard Amira talking to a group of friends about how she’d never had her own space at home, and now that her sister had moved out, she was for the first time excited about having a whole room for herself. And both girls were so happy when they thought Jessica was going to share with them her decoration hacks.  
Jessica thought for a moment, then looked to Terry.  
“What?” he said.  
“Terry, I don’t want to lose my job.”  
He nodded, smiling. “If I may be so bold to assume what your sister, Elizabeth, would say, it’s something along the lines of ‘Principal Radeeni would understand’.”   
Jessica smiled. It was like a whole load of heavy scab-like life was lifted off her chest, and the world in front of her, although right now that world consisted of just a wall, brightened with color for the first time in three years.  
Her lips parted, about to respond to Terry, when a notification bell went off. She looked at her phone. A message from Nada. She opened and found a video.  
It was clear what this video was of. She didn’t need to press play. This video’s thumbnail was of her sitting on her desk, closing her eyes, and the duration was almost a minute.  
“They filmed us!” Jessica shrieked. “No way I’m watching this, but if you say Principal Radeeni would understand, if this video gets out, I’m done for. Fucking schools.”  
She dropped her head back against the sofa, her chest closed up and she couldn’t breathe. She looked to Terry. “And you had to fucking eat me out in the middle of a fucking classroom with minors twelve feet away?”  
“Jessica, calm down.”  
“Don’t ask me to calm down. I’m now unemployable. If this video goes out, if those girls have showed it or sent it…” She closed her eyes, not wanting to imagine.  
“Jessica,” started Terry. “You have no way of knowing they would show it to anyone.”  
“Of course, they would. They’re teenagers.”  
“Jessica!”   
She’d gotten up, crossing the living-room area to get to the stairs, which she climbed in heavy, strident stomps to block out Terry’s words. Once she got in her room, she slammed the door and locked it. She fell face down on her bed, pulling the covers over her head. Soon after, she fell asleep and had a nightmare where Principal Radeeni was destroying her CVs with a chainsaw.


	14. Chapter 14

When Jessica woke up the next morning, she went straight to Elizabeth’s room. The sun wasn’t shining there, not brightening every corner, or spilling out into the corridor as it usually did after Elizabeth had woken up and left her room with all the windows and doors wide open to let in the fresh air. Instead, right now even the shutters were shut. The bedsheets weren’t crumpled at the foot of the bed like Elizabeth did to air the mattress. They were pulled neatly all the way up to the headboard, the pillows a masked hump underneath them.  
With a sigh, she walked into the shadowy bedroom. Now that Elizabeth’s ghost was gone, Jessica saw the room as how it actually looked each day for the past three years, dusty and dim. But something glinted on the bedside table and Jessica went to pick it up.  
It was a silver frame, holding a picture of Elizabeth and her. A tear ran down her cheek as she stared into her sister’s photographed eyes.  
“I miss you, Liz,” she said. “Terry has brought out a side in you I’ve never seen before, a bubbly, carefree side, the way I wished you’d be with me sometimes. But this isn’t you. You were always so rational. You reminded me of what was important, what I shouldn’t lose sight of, and I didn’t always listen.” She wiped the tears off her face and held the picture frame to her chest. “I love you, Liz, and I miss you. I needed you, as boring as you were.” She laughed. “I still need you, and I will remember you.”  
The bedroom door creaked and Jessica looked up to see Terry standing in the doorframe. He glanced around the room, imitating an inspector’s look as he said in a formal tone, “No more ghosts around.”  
Jessica set the picture frame down and with a straight posture and resolute steps, she walked towards him. “You still have one more task to do here.”  
His brows rose. “Oh, you’re giving me orders now?” Jessica just tilted her head, and then Terry just laughed. “Fine, what is it?”  
“My job,” she said. “I enjoyed it. Ghost Elizabeth was right, trying to have me keep the life I want, but…”  
“The video,” finished Terry.  
She nodded. “What am I going to do?”  
“You’ll figure it out,” he said.   
“You won’t make it disappear?” she cried, a little panicked. “Like you did with that wound on your knee?”  
Terry leaned in and kissed her cheek. She thought of berating him but when he stepped back from her to look into her eyes, her breath got caught in her chest. The expression on his face told her this was going to be the last time she’d see him. Despite what he had promised the night before.  
The tears came back with no warning. She held out her hand, but he had already faded out, swallowed by the dim corridor as if he’d been made of shadow all along.  
After a few minutes, Jessica was in her room, dressed. She went to the kitchen and immediately made herself busy with preparing breakfast, which she packed in her bag because she didn’t want to linger in the kitchen for long. One reason was she didn’t want to be later, the other one was she didn’t want to give herself a chance to glance out of the kitchen window and see the back garden, and the forest trees outside the fence that were no longer there.   
Walking out in the 6:40 am sunlight, Jessica stopped outside her front door and breathed in the air. While enjoying the pure freshness of it, her hand automatically reached into her bag to get to her shades, but Jessica pulled her hand out, remembering they were in the glove compartment. However, it wasn’t until she’d arrived at the parking lot of the school when she realized she hadn’t even bothered to take them out. She decided not to wear them as she climbed out of the car, which was funny because this might’ve been the moment where she needed them the most.  
Once past the school entrance, Jessica aimed for the terrace. Nada and Amira surely waited for her up there, even earlier than usual. The school grounds hadn’t filled in yet. She kept glancing over her shoulder for anyone who could be giving her odd stares, but so far, everyone who was here acted as dull as usual. Maybe Nada and Amira hadn’t sent the video to anyone yet, maybe they were planning to blackmail Jessica with it. Well, Jessica was not going to take any of that. Her career was probably over, but it would break her heart if she didn’t, at least, try to save it.  
“Miss Wakefield?”  
Oh no, she thought as she recognized Principal Radeeni’s voice behind her. She was hoping she’d sort the mess of the explicit video first before facing him. If she dared to face him later.  
With a deep breath in, Jessica turned on her heel and forced a smile. “Good morning, Principal Radeeni.”   
“Jessica,” he said. “Please, follow me to my office.”  
Once they were there, he offered Jessica a seat. Her knees shook and she rested her purse on top of them.  
“Good to see you’re back.” Principal Radeeni rested his elbows on his desk and placed his hands together, giving the ex-teacher a scrutinizing look.  
Jessica swallowed, her throat so dry. “I, uh, made a mistake. I didn’t mean what I said or did yesterday. If it’s not so much trouble, although I know…”  
“Jessica,” the principal interrupted, sliding his elbows off the desk as he reclined in his chair, shutting his eyes for a moment. “When I first started working here, had just newly transferred, I met your sister, Elizabeth. At that time, it was her third year working in this school. Anyway, she noticed how nervous I was on my first day, even when I was so good at pretending I wasn’t.” He paused, smiling. “She told me one thing.”  
Jessica leaned forward in her chair, dying to hear the next words that’d come out of his mouth. Her sister’s mouth.  
“You will screw up.”  
“What?” She frowned.  
“That’s what she said. The first time I saw her, it was during her break in the staffroom. Your sister looked up from her coffee to smile politely at me and I smiled back, preparing myself for some small talk when she said, ‘You will screw up’. Her first words to me.”  
Jessica didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. Maybe she did both, for her heart was jumping, yet Principal Radeeni reached for the box of tissues on his desk and handed it to her.  
After she calmed down, Jessica put down the crumpled tissue and said, “Honestly, I’m not scared if I would screw up. I’m scared other people would.”  
“Other people?” said the principal unconvinced, raising his brow.  
Pausing for a moment, Jessica then licked her lip, returned his stare and said, “God. I’m scared God will screw up.”  
Principal Radeeni laughed.  
“God or whoever is responsible for ruining this planet and breaking people’s hearts.”  
Principal Radeeni stopped laughing. He looked into her eyes for a long serious moment, then said, “Well, what would Elizabeth say to that?”  
Jessica licked her lips again, hesitated before she gave the principal a wide smile. “She’d say, ‘Let the higher power fuck up and focus on yourself.”  
The principal smiled, his eyes watering.  
“Jessica, I don’t want you to quit.”  
“I don’t want to quit, either.” She dabbed the corner of her eye with a fresh tissue.  
“I understand the sudden death of our beloved student, Sami, three days ago has triggered you in some way.”  
Sami, thought Jessica with a racing heart. That student she’d always seen around with a book, so focused on his own interests and how the world worked. He used to remind her of Elizabeth. Like if Elizabeth was still around, he’d be her favorite student. Jessica wiped some more tears. The framed picture of him in the memorial of flowers that was at this very moment set outside the school building flashed through her mind.  
“I’ve just been so haunted by grief the past three years,” she said, remembering how every night since the accident she saw the ghosts of Skippy and Elizabeth waiting for her at home, sometimes following her to school. The only place where they didn’t come along for the ride was when Jessica went to hang out with her friends at night. Maybe it was because her friends knew what she was going through, even if they didn’t talk about it much with her. Their awareness of her grief had nevertheless acted like a guard against ghosts.  
“It’s not easy, but that doesn’t mean you will forever have no places, things, or people that feel easy.”   
Her chest heaved and before she could help it, Jessica started to bawl. Principal Radeeni got off his chair and went to stand next to her, patting her shaking shoulders.  
“There, there,” he said. “You’ll be okay.”  
If only he knew the real reason she was crying.  
“Thank you, Principal Radeeni.” Jessica got up, slid the strap of her purse over her shoulder. When she was halfway out the door, she turned to look at him. He was already at his desk, and had glanced up, surprised to see her looking back. He smiled. This was how she wanted the last time she’d see him to be. Not his face after that video would leak, after she’d cause a scandal to his school.   
Jessica returned the smile and closed the door.  
She had no idea why she ran upstairs instead of downstairs. There was no use staying in this building. Everything she’d ever worked for would be gone in a few seconds. So why was she still here, why did she still need to enter her classroom and go to that storeroom, which she never felt like organizing, and feel like she was going to miss it more than ever before?   
But even after losing her job, she could still make things easier on herself. She took out her phone and texted Lila. She imagined herself sitting on the parquet floors of Lila’s apartment, feeling absolute peace while staring out a window with the city sunlight, buildings, scattered trees, and even a few billboards here and there. Jessica smiled, feeling that moving in with Lila was the right decision for the time being.  
“Miss Jessica?” said a timid female voice from outside the storeroom. There it was. The moment that would bring her career to an end.  
Jessica took in a deep breath and stepped out of the storeroom to meet her doom.


	15. Chapter 15

“So,” said Jessica, staring at Nada and Amira with her arms crossed. “Have you leaked my video yet?”  
But it surprised Jessica to see that instead of mischievous faces, the two female students looked kind of distraught.  
“Leaked? What are you talking about?” Nada murmured in an uncharacteristically meek voice. It almost seemed as if the sassy seventeen-year-old was having a breakdown.  
“You filmed a dirty little video of me in this classroom. I guess, now you’re planning to lord it over me.”   
Amira frowned. “Of course, not, Miss Jessica.”  
The adult fell silent for a moment, glancing from one student to the other. “Then what is this about? Why did you send me the video?”  
“We didn’t know what else to do,” said Nada. “You weren’t picking up our calls, and we wanted to let you know that… we saw you and we filmed the whole thing, but we don’t mean to do anything with it.”   
“Right,” chimed in Amira. “I mean, Miss Jessica, what kind of people do you think we are? We just saw you doing something out of the ordinary and in the moment we thought would be funny to film it, that’s all. Now we regret it.”  
“Funny?” Jessica realized that her jaw was dangling. She shut her mouth with a click of her teeth, gulped, then spoke again. “But… what I did was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done anything like that on the school premise. And if you took that video to file a complaint against me to the principal, do it. Because, girls, you have every right. You do. However, if you want my advice, taking a video of someone like that is such a crude thing.”  
“This was never our intention, Miss Jessica. We promise.”  
“Right,” she cried, rolling her eyes. “Because your generation simply has the inability to stop itself from pressing that round red button at anything that moves.”  
“Miss Jessica, we’re sorry. We really are. I mean, filming you was wrong and we decided to come clean with you, because we didn’t want to start out our senior year à la Pretty Little Liars. That show creeps us out.”  
“Fine, I believe you,” said Jessica, and reached her hand out to Nada. “Can you show me the video?”  
“You don’t want me to delete it?”  
Jessica sighed. She could never be sure whether Nada had already sent it to someone else, but the girl and her friend were now handling the aftermath of the situation as best as it was possible – on the surface, at least – and Jessica didn’t want to fail at reinforcing that by showing mistrust.  
“You can delete it after I take a real look at it.”  
Nada unlocked her phone and handed it to Jessica.  
Inhaling loudly, Jessica pressed play, then kept pressing the button to lower the volume till it hit mute. She kept a good distance from the girls as she watched, not knowing why she needed to see that video on Nada’s phone. Maybe she wanted to tell herself that it didn’t really exist, that it was all a joke.  
“What?” Jessica couldn’t believe it. After watching the video from beginning to end, she replayed it three times more. “What in God’s name is that?”  
She walked over to her desk, needing to sit down as she played the video yet again. This time, when the girls went to her side and watched the phone screen with her, she didn’t stop them or flinch away from them.   
“This… this video is just of me sleeping in the classroom.”  
“Yes,” said Amira. “It’s a felony, right? Sleeping could get you fired, but we never mean to ever, ever hurt you, Miss Jessica.”  
Jessica gaped at her student, before she burst out laughing. She wished Terry was here, just so she could make him pay for this little last trick he played on her.


End file.
